Nearly 15 months after a plane crash in Indonesia killed two University students, an investigation from the island nation released last week blamed the incident on pilot error and a faulty navigation system, according to The Associated Press.
University students Stephanie Jackson, 21, and Lindsey Jackson, 18, were aboard a flight that went missing on New Year’s Day in 2007. Also on board was their father, Scott Jackson, who lived part-time in Indonesia. More than a week later, pieces of the plane turned up off the coast of Sulawesi, its destination in central Indonesia.
The plane encountered stormy weather on its flight, during which the pilots reported having problems with the navigation system – 154 such defects had been reported for that plane in the months leading up to the crash, but flight carrier Adam Air didn’t address them properly, according to the reports.
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In the process of trying to deal with the faulty system, the pilots accidentally disengaged the jetliner’s autopilot, the investigation found, ultimately causing the crash that killed all 102 people on board.
The cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot yelling, “Pull up! Pull up!” seconds before the plane hit the water.
Adam Air’s operating license was revoked shortly before last week’s investigation was released.
For University alumna Crispin Young, a former roommate of Stephanie Jackson, last week’s developments did little to ease the pain of losing a close friend.
“I’m in so much shock right now I feel sick,” Young wrote in an e-mail. “I had always thought the plane went down due to bad weather. Hearing about the mistakes the pilots made makes my stomach twist up. It brings back a lot of the pain I was feeling last January. They grounded Adam Air a little too late.”
Friends of the Jackson sisters continue to post messages on a Facebook memorial group. Most messages are from other University students or former residents of Bend, where both sisters attended high school.
“Somehow I end up saying something about you to all the new people I meet,” reads one posting to Lindsey Jackson from a Cornish College of the Arts student last Thursday. “Even though you never met them, you still make them smile too.”
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