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JAKARTA - THE International Air Transport Association is urging Indonesia to introduce tougher checks on its airlines following a series of fatal accidents, a spokesman said on Thursday.
The IATA made the call during a meeting with Indonesia's vice president on Wednesday, a day after an investigation blamed pilot error for the January 2007 crash of an Indonesian Adam Air flight that killed all 102 people on board.
'We urged the Indonesian government to look at mandating IOSA (the IATA Operational Safety Audit) as a requirement for Indonesian carriers,' spokesman Albert Tjoeng told AFP.
Last week, the government banned budget airline Adam Air from flying after it a failed routine safety inspection.
Indonesia's mushrooming airline industry has suffered several fatal accidents in recent years, prompting international censure.
Last year 21 people died when a Garuda plane carrying 140 passengers and crew slammed into an airport runway in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta and bursting into flames.
Indonesia has a total of 51 commercial and charter airlines, but so far only national flag carrier Garuda is a member of IATA.
In April 2007 the US advised its citizens not to use Indonesian airlines saying they did not comply with international safety standards, and in July the European Union banned them from flying to Europe.
IOSA is based on International Civil Aviation Organisation standards and has been a condition for IATA membership since 2006.
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