Police praise plane crash pilot

Police say the pilot's actions saved pasengers' lives

Police and passengers have praised the action of the pilot of a Garuda Boeing 737 who crash landed on an Indonesian river on Wednesday.

It's amazing that the pilot landed without the plane exploding

Police officer

One woman crew member was killed but 59 other passengers and crew were rescued after the plane got into trouble in heavy weather.

As Indonesian investigators began gathering evidence on Thursday, the airline's president, Abdulgani, said both of the planes engines stopped during the aircraft's descent through rain clouds and thunder storms.

"The pilot tried to reactivate the engines but they were still off... As the plane kept going down, he decided to make an emergency landing," he said.

The pilot brought the plane down on the Bengawan Solo river, which winds through a heavily populated rural area, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) north east of its destination, the central Javan city of Yogyakarta.

A local police officer told the Reuters news agency: "It's amazing that he [the pilot] landed without the plane exploding.

"He managed to bring it down away from any homes."

'Miracle' survival

Hospital officials said 23 people on board were injured, seven of them seriously. Reports said nine women and three men remained in hospital on Thursday.

Passengers described the plane as rocking from side-to-side as it descended - one passenger, who walked away uninjured with his pregnant wife, said their survival was "a miracle".

Farhan Sunkar told El-Shinta radio: "We landed hard but I only realised it was a crash-landing when I saw water.

The plane was en-route from the resort island of Lombok to Yogyakarta, another popular tourist destination.

It came down at 1635 (0935GMT), about 20 minutes from its destination.

In June 1996, three people died after a Garuda DC-10 overran the runway after an aborted take-off. The crash was blamed on pilot error.