JAKARTA – An Garuda Indonesia pilot will face court this week over a plane crash in Yogyakarta last year that killed 21 people.
Marwoto Komar, 46, will be the first pilot to face criminal charges over a plane crash in Indonesia.
The decision to prosecute has been criticized by pilot unions, who argue that the decision is unhelpful in seeking answers to the cause of the crash.
Marwoto’s trial – on charges of negligence – will begin in Yogyakarta, central Java, on Thursday.
Yogyakarta police last month formally handed their 200-page case file to prosecutors.
Twenty-one passengers killed when the Boeing 737 jet overshot the runway and burst into flames in a nearby field at Yogyakarta on March 7 last year.
A final report by safety regulators said the pilot was so “fixated” with landing that he ignored 15 alarms and the pleas of his co-pilot, warning he was coming in too fast.
