The Austrialian, "Plane crash victims plan lawsuit"

Relatives of passengers injured or killed in three major air crashes involving local airlines – Mandala Air, Adam Air and, last week, Garuda Indonesia – are lining up to sue the makers of the planes and their components, The Jakarta Post reported today. "We have filed a law suit in a US court on the behalf of the families of the 75 victims of the Mandala Air accident in Medan, and 11 victims of the recent Adam Air accident," Indonesian advocate David Abraham said.

Mr Abraham said his law firm had received verbal confirmations from the relatives of two passengers who died in last week's Garuda crash in Yogyakarta, and from one surviving passenger, that they wanted to sue the aircraft and component manufacturers. The flight, carrying 140 passengers, erupted in a fireball after a high-speed landing on March 7, killing 21 passengers. Five of the 10 Australians aboard died. All 102 passengers aboard an Adam Air Boeing 737-300 aircraft were killed when it plunged into the ocean off the coast of Sulawesi island in January.

In relation to the Mandala Air crash in Medan on September 5, 2005, which killed 147 people, Abraham said his firm was collaborating with US-based law firm, Lieff Global. With Lieff Global's help, Mr Abraham said his firm had filed a negligence lawsuit in a US district court in Illinois in January against the Boeing Corporation and United Technologies.

"I just found out that Boeing and United Technologies have another week to accept the lawsuit served upon them, which I think they will do ... we expect things to move very rapidly," Brian J Lawler from Lieff Global told the newspaper. Mr Abraham added: "The lawsuit has been accepted and we expect trial to commence on April 26."

Mr Abraham said that his firm and Lieff Global had compiled all the records on the Mandala accident, including the findings made by an independent technical investigation funded by Lieff Global, as well as those made by national transportation safety investigators in both Indonesia and US. "I expect a similar period of investigation prior to filing the Adam Air and Garuda suits," he said.

"Our investigation shows that there was a possibility of product defects in the Mandala accident, one involving the engine and another affecting the takeoff warning system, which was not working properly," he said.