JAKARTA: Alarmed by two recent deadly air disasters, Indonesian authorities yesterday vowed to tighten the monitoring of domestic airlines and signalled that some carriers might be forced to close down, a local media report said.
“In the near future, God willing, some airlines will be shut down,” Budi Mulyawan Suyitno, the newly-installed air transport chief at the Ministry of Transportation, was quoted as saying by detik.com online news service. 
Following liberalisation of Indonesia’s domestic aviation industry in the late 1990s, dozens of budget carriers began operating.
However, there has been concern over their safety practices, competence of pilots, as well as the country’s regulatory industry, which is allegedly beset by poor enforcement and bribery.
Around half the commercial jetliners currently in operation in Indonesia were more than 20 years old, he said.
On March 7, a Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesian flag carrier Garuda Airlines crashed and burst into flames after overshooting the runway at an airport in Yogyakarta, Central Java, killing 21 people.
Australian survivors said that the plane was travelling too fast on its approach.–DPA