SilkAir Flight 185
Parts of the wreckage of 9V-TRF, recovered from the Indonesian Musi River.
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| Occurrence summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 19 December 1997 |
| Summary | |
| Site |
Musi River, Palembang, Indonesia 2°27′30″S 104°56′12″E / 2.45833°S 104.93667°ECoordinates: 2°27′30″S 104°56′12″E / 2.45833°S 104.93667°E |
| Passengers | 97 |
| Crew | 7 |
| Fatalities | 104 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-36N |
| Operator | SilkAir |
| Registration | 9V-TRF |
| Flight origin | Soekarno–Hatta Int'l Airport, Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Destination | Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore |
 Picture of the SilkAir Boeing 737-36N aircraft which crashed (From www.airliners.net)
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SilkAir Flight 185 was a scheduled SilkAir passenger flight operated by a Boeing 737-300 from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Singapore, that crashed into the Musi River near Palembang in southern Sumatra, on 19 December 1997, killing all 97 passengers and seven crew on board.
The cause of the crash was independently investigated by two agencies in two countries: the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC). The NTSB, which had jurisdiction based on Boeing's manufacture of the aircraft in the United States, investigated the crash under lead investigator Greg Feith. Its investigation concluded that the crash was the result of deliberate flight control inputs, most likely by the captain. The Indonesian NTSC, led by Engineering Professor Oetarjo Diran, was unable to determine a cause of the crash.
Another potential factor that led to the crash of the 737 aircraft was the power control unit (PCU) that controlled the aircraft's rudder. The cause of some 737 crashes such as USAir Flight 427 had been attributed to the 737's rudder issues. Although the NTSB and PCU manufacturer Parker Hannifin had already determined that the PCU was properly working, and thus not the cause of the crash, a private investigation into the crash for a civil lawsuit tried by jury in a California state court in Los Angeles, which was not allowed to hear or consider the NTSB's and Parker Hannifin's conclusions, decided that the crash was caused by a defective servo valve inside the PCU, based on forensic findings from an electron microscope which determined that minute defects within the PCU had caused the rudder hard-over and a subsequent uncontrollable flight and crash. The manufacturer of the aircraft's rudder controls and the families later reached an out-of-court settlement.
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