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SYDNEY - The pilot and co-pilot of a Garuda airliner that crashed on landing in Indonesia, killing 21 people, were arguing moments before the accident about the plane's speed, a senior Indonesian investigator said.
Cockpit voice recordings recovered from the passenger jet showed the co-pilot wanted the pilot to go around again instead of landing, Tatang Kurniadi of Indonesia's National Transport Safety Commission told Australian television.
"Absent mindedness. I worry that this accident came from the absent-mindedness of the cockpit," Mr Kurniadi told the Nine Network.
The Garuda Airlines aircraft with 140 people on board overshot the runway in the central Java city of Yogyakarta on March 7 and burst into flames. Five Australians were among those killed.
Survivors of the crash have described how the aircraft approached the runway at a "crazy" speed.
Kurniadi said the captain and first officer were flying together for the first time.
"The co-pilot is a young pilot with just about 2,000 flying hours and the captain, is experienced, having enough experience, more than 15,000 flying hours," he said.
Investigators said last month they had been able to download the last 30 minutes of the crew's conversations after the black box cockpit voice recorder, which was badly burned, was sent to the United States.
"There was also some argumentation between the co-pilot and the pilot and captain relating with the speed and flaps," Kurniadi said.
Asked if the co-pilot wanted the captain to go around, he said: "Yes, I think."
Kurniadi said the flaps did not jam, and it appeared it would have been possible at that stage to go around, but it was not known why the pilot chose to land.
The investigation was expected to be finalised in a month.
Indonesia has suffered a string of transport accidents in recent months, including an Adam Air aircraft that disappeared in January with 102 passengers and crew on board and a ferry sinking in late December in which hundreds died.
Rapid growth in air travel in Indonesia, a country of more than 17,000 islands, has raised questions over whether safety has been compromised and whether the infrastructure and personnel can cope with the huge increase.
- REUTERS
