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Bronte 24/3/07

Rudd marks Garuda crash

SMH, March 8, 2008
THE five Australians killed in last year's plane crash in Indonesia were remembered yesterday by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, as passionate Australians.
Mr Rudd also paid tribute to the Herald journalist Cynthia Banham, who was severely injured in the Garuda crash on March 7 last year that killed 21 people when the Boeing 737 overshot the Yogyakarta airport runway and exploded.
Mr Rudd said his thoughts and prayers were with the families and friends. Five passionate Australians had died "vigorously pursuing their professions, in the prime of their lives", he said.
Private commemorations were held in Canberra and Jakarta for the federal police agents Brice Steele and Mark Scott, AusAID official Allison Sudradjat, Department of Foreign Affairs official Liz O'Neill and Australian Financial Review journalist Morgan Mellish, who died in the crash.
They were among government officials and reporters covering a visit to Indonesia by the then foreign minister, Alexander Downer. He was not on the plane.
Mr Rudd said the federal police would pay tribute to their officers, along with others who had lost their lives in the line of duty, on National Police Remembrance Day on September 29. The Department of Foreign Affairs and AusAID had created scholarships and annual awards. The first six AusAID scholarships will be announced on March 17.
Mr Rudd said the " efforts of Cynthia Banham and her partner, Michael Harvey, to rebuild their lives is a humbling tribute to the power of the human spirit".
Caroline Mellish, the sister of Mr Mellish, said she was disappointed Indonesia had not moved to improve air safety. "The investigation itself, I believe, has been thorough," she told Nine Network.
Phillip Hudson and AAP

Newspapers announce Indonesia scholarships

SMH, March 8, 2008
A Scholarship program to help Indonesian journalists and photographers gain experience in Australia was launched yesterday by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review on the first anniversary of the Yogyakarta plane crash.
Two scholarships of $5000 each will be offered annually to help promising Indonesian journalists or photographers visit Australia, where they will be hosted by the newspapers.
Currently there are very limited opportunities for Indonesian journalists to visit Australia and benefit from the professional and cultural experiences of working here.
The program was launched by the editor of the Herald, Alan Oakley, the editor of the AFR, Glenn Burge, and the chief executive officer of Fairfax Media, David Kirk.
They said the scholarships were an opportunity for the two newspapers, whose staff suffered physical and emotional blows from the plane crash, to build on their ties with Indonesia and to honour their many journalists who have reported with distinction from Indonesia.
"We expect the new scholarships will forge rewarding ties with our counterparts in Indonesia and deliver ongoing benefits to journalists and photographers in both countries," they said in a statement.
Five Australians died in the Yogyakarta tragedy, including the Financial Review journalist Morgan Mellish. The Herald journalist Cynthia Banham was severely injured.
Fairfax Media is funding the scholarships, with full support from the publishers of the Herald and Financial Review.
The Financial Review has also established an annual scholarship to allow one of its reporters to study and travel in Asia, to continue the journalism Mellish was pursuing.

Air crash victims honoured today

Mark Forbes Herald Correspondent in Jakarta
SMH, March 7, 2008
FRIENDS, family and colleagues will place flowers and light candles in Australia and Jakarta this morning in memory of the five Australians who died in the Garuda plane crash a year ago.
Small ceremonies will be held at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra and Australia's Jakarta embassy at 7am Indonesian time, when candles will be lit about the same time the Boeing 737 overshot the Yogyakarta runway.
There will be no speeches, just an opportunity for the close-knit communities of diplomats, police and journalists who were rocked by tragedy to remember the five popular, respected victims. All were on the flight for a visit to Yogyakarta by the then foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer.
At the embassy's entrance, guests will pay their respects before a plaque honouring the five. A similar gathering will be held in the foyer of the department's Canberra headquarters
Jakarta-based international correspondents will also gather this evening to remember Morgan Mellish, a journalist with The Australian Financial Review who perished in the crash. Plans to establish a scholarship for reporters will be announced.
It is just one of several ways in which the memory of their five - and their passion for public service and international work - will continue.
Friends and family have established the Morgan Mellish Foundation in Australia raising funds for international and local charities. The Elizabeth O'Neill Journalism Award has been instituted in the name of the diplomat, allowing young Indonesian and Australian journalists to explore and understand each other's nations.
Leading Indonesian students have also been the recipients of study grants named after AusAid's Indonesia head, Allison Sudradjat.
Twenty-one people died in the crash and the Herald journalist Cynthia Banham was severely injured. The other Australian victims were senior Australian Federal Police agents Brice Steele and Mark Scott.
Indonesian police want the pilot, Martowo Komar, to face criminal negligence charges.

Friday to mark a year since Garuda crash

SMH, March 6, 2008
Candles will be lit at Australia's Embassy in Jakarta on Friday to commemorate the five Australians killed in an Indonesian plane crash a year ago.
Friday marks the first anniversary of the Garuda plane crash which killed 21 people on landing in Yogyakarta on March 7, 2007.
A series of small, private gatherings will be held in Indonesia's capital to commemorate the anniversary.
At the embassy, friends and relatives of those Australians who perished will be able to place flowers near a plaque erected in their memory at the main entrance to the mission.
The five Australians had been travelling to cover a visit by Australia's then foreign minister Alexander Downer.
They were Australian Financial Review journalist Morgan Mellish, 36; diplomat Liz O'Neill, 37; Australian Federal Police agents Brice Steele, 37, and Mark Scott, 41; and AusAid Indonesia head Allison Sudradjat, 41.
Police are still probing the crash one year on, although they have indicated the 45-year-old pilot Captain Martowo Komar will face criminal charges.
The decision has sparked outrage from other pilots.
Komar is believed to be the first pilot to face prosecution over a plane crash in Indonesia, which has a poor aviation safety record.
He faces up to seven years imprisonment if convicted for the five flagged charges, which include negligence causing death and injury.
A final report by safety regulators found the pilot was so "fixated" with landing that he ignored 15 alarms and the pleas of his copilot warning he was coming in too fast.
The plane was travelling at almost double the normal landing speed.
Komar was detained at Yogyakarta Police Headquarters early last month, but released on bail two weeks later.
He could face court within weeks.
2008 AAP

PBR's last launch of HMS Mellish

Here's some pics from Morg's last PBR launch.

Was a longtime coming but well worth it.

Geoff

Hey Guys.

Well its almost a year now since we lost our boy Morg’s due to that stupid **** that just didn’t do his job properly! For me and I’m sure for you guys it has been quite an emotional rollercoaster coming to terms with the unnecessary loss of such a good friend. So to help close up the wound and say goodbye in the most appropriate way, five of us took a trip from Jakarta down to Cemaja last week to catch some waves, do a bit of soul searching and cast the remaining ashes of Morgan into the surf that he loved so much.

In the true spirit of our typical surf trips the farewell preparation and ceremony was a bit mad and totally unorganized. Over a wicked seafood dinner & beers the night before the farewell ceremony, the boys conceptualized (amongst other numerous and ambitious plans) to launch Morg’s ashes into the Indian ocean by way of a model Javanese fishing boat. Of course we bought a model boat that looked the business but didn’t float upright at first so we had to undertake some running modifications & draw upon the assistance of Ade Rabig (the local surf board repair boss) to source materials & help with the modifications. Upon completing the seaworthy adjustments to the vessel we all piled into our transport & headed off to a specially selected calm little surf spot called Logi (refer pics). Just to make things a little more interesting, as we arrived at the quite little surf spot a thumping great storm hit us with 30 knot onshore wind gusts. But we struggled on through all these difficulties with good humor & launched Morgs back to sea!!

I’m sure he was watching over the 4 days we were in Cemaja & found the whole thing totally appropriate!!

Cheers

Ev

The 'Morgan Mellish'

The Morgan Mellish

The Morgs Cup

Ben and Ming decided to commemorate the friendship they had with Morgan by playing golf for The Morgs Cup.

Much thought went into what the cup should look like. An elephant pewter mug, bought at a market in Bangkok, was chosen.

Ben, Ming and any of Morgan's friends will continue to play golf against each other and hopefully they will all, at some stage, victoriously hold the cup aloft.

Ben also enthusiastically produced some Morgs Cup t-shirts, the first being worn by here Ming Wong and Ben Hunter.

For more photos of the handsome pair visit The Hunters.

Journalism loses a rising star

Walkley Magazine Issue 44 April/May 2007

Morgan Mellish
1970-2007
A surfer, a sailor and a tenacious journalist, Morgan Mellish was also a good bloke. Sean Aylmer and Andrew Burrell remember a friend.
Beside the bed in Morgan Mellish’s house in Jakarta was a well-thumbed copy of a favourite novel, Christopher Koch’s Highways To A War, about the life of a photojournalist in Indochina, as well as tomes on Islam and philosophy.
He once told a colleague that he decided to become a journalist after reading that novel and Koch’s other compelling account of foreign newsmen, The Year of Living Dangerously.
As a foreign correspondent for The Australian Financial Review in Indonesia, Morgan was fulfilling that dream, as he told a former colleague, fund manager Matthew Kidman, four weeks ago.
Morgan had rung Kidman asking for some investment tips and in the course of a long chat said his Jakarta-based role for the AFR was the perfect job.
“I can do what I want, there’s lots going on over here and I can write what I want, no-one is telling me what to do and I go surfing when I want,” he joked to Kidman, an old mate from when they both worked in the business section of The Sydney Morning Herald in the late 1990s.
Morgan was one of the five Australians and 16 Indonesians who died in the tragic plane crash in Yogyakarta on the morning of March 7. The others were Australian Embassy spokeswoman Liz O’Neill, AusAID officer Allison Sudradjat and federal police officers Mark Scott and Brice Steele. Badly injured in the accident was Sydney Morning Herald journalist Cynthia Banham.
Morgan was among the most liked reporters at Fairfax.
While people remember his laid-back, relaxed attitude to life, he was also a tenacious reporter who refused to be intimidated.
At one lunchtime meeting in 2000 with Ray Williams, the former boss of HIH who eventually went to jail over accounting irregularities, Morgan decided to find out how the insurer’s accounts worked.
“Your treatment of goodwill just seems wrong,” he told Williams, his lunchtime host. “Explain how you can do that.”
Williams, who at the time was king of the insurance industry, said he could do it under current accounting standards. Morgan wasn’t satisfied and badgered Williams for 30 minutes. Eventually the HIH boss fobbed him off by promising to get one of his management team to explain the accounting standards at a later date.
As Morgan walked back to the Fairfax offices in Sussex Street, Sydney, explaining to a colleague why Williams was wrong, he said: “That guy’s a crook.” He was right.
Interviewing Rodney Adler, the former head of FAI Insurances, by phone from the AFR office, Morgan (feet on the table) told Adler he didn’t understand his explanation about buying HIH shares. On and on he probed. Eventually, Morgan’s notes and taped conversations were used as part of the case against Adler that landed the former FAI boss in prison. It is one of the few instances in Australian corporate history in which a journalist’s work has landed a chief executive in jail.
Morgan’s crowning journalistic achievement came in November 2005, when he wrote a series of articles that forced South Australian businessman Robert Gerard off the board of the Reserve Bank. It won him the 2006 Walkley Award for business journalism.
By combing through five court registries in Brisbane and Adelaide, Morgan discovered that Gerard was fighting the Australian Taxation Office over a Caribbean tax haven deal, labelled “tax evasion” by investigators, which led to a $150million settlement.
Gerard’s difficulties with the ATO were known previously, but no-one in the media or government had investigated properly. Morgan nailed the story but needed to speak to Gerard.
Having left a message with Gerard’s wife, Morgan headed to the beach with his surfboard and mobile. Gerard called back just as Morgan was fresh out of the waves. He didn’t have any paper handy, so he scrawled some notes in the margin of his copy of the SMH, including the killer quote from Gerard acknowledging he had told Peter Costello about his dispute with the ATO.
The Walkley Award judging committee called it the first breaking story that “seriously rocked the Howard government”.
“Mellish’s research was exceptional and continued to set the agenda on one of the biggest stories of the year – an outcome that ultimately resulted in Robert Gerard’s resignation.”
The AFR’s chief political correspondent, Laura Tingle, worked with Morgan during the Gerard story.
“I was repeatedly bowled over by the thoroughness of the work he had already done and the confidence that gave him, in his own very cool and detached way, that what we wrote was utterly accurate and beyond political attack,” she says.
Morgan was highly regarded outside the media community.
Treasurer Peter Costello extended his sympathies to the family, friends and colleagues of Morgan: “Morgan was a well-liked and respected journalist and I extend my sympathies to all those who knew and loved him.”
Westpac chief executive David Morgan, who dealt with Morgan over several years, thought he was a “good guy”. “A tenacious journalist is a fair description. If he was on to a story, he was like a dog with a bone. During interviews he was pretty tough-minded and quite probing. He was unfailingly professional,” Morgan said.
And Simon Mordant, joint chief executive of advisory firm Caliburn Partnership, said Morgan was a “star”.
“What he achieved was pretty impressive in any career,” Mordant says of Morgan, whom he met not long after Morgan joined the business section of The Sydney Morning Herald in September 1997.
On his first day at the Herald, Morgan was shown his desk and told to read the papers. After putting a few belongings in drawers, he decided to ring a few friends and provide them with his new phone number. That morphed into long discussions about his recent surfing trip to Indonesia, and by late afternoon on day one he was firmly ensconced, feet on desk, talking to his mates about surfing.
He wasn’t avoiding work – he just hadn’t been given any guidance on what to do. By Morgan’s reckoning, why waste time looking busy on day one when you could use the time better ringing friends.
It demonstrated a self-confidence that Morgan carried throughout his journalistic career. He knew what he was good at, but also his weaknesses. He was never afraid to ask questions, no matter how they sounded, and was happy to take advice.
Regularly he would ask his editors to read his stories in an effort to improve them. He explained once that he loved working with one AFR editor because “she makes me a better writer”.
Such self-assuredness made him a very good journalist. He had no qualms about approaching chief executives, government ministers, investment bankers or anyone who he needed to speak to.
He also had the knack of gaining people’s trust – another essential ingredient in a journalist’s make-up.
“He was someone you instantly trusted and that’s extremely important,” Mordant says. “Sometimes you would talk to him, and you weren’t quite sure whether he got it, but he always did.”
Morgan grew up on Sydney’s North Shore, attending Shore School and surfing the break off the northern beaches. He did an economics degree at the Australian National University in Canberra before becoming a journalist, working for the trade publication Foodweek.
After his stint at the SMH, Morgan shifted to The Australian Financial Review in early 2000, where he worked as financial services editor before becoming chief economics writer based in Canberra.
In 2004 he moved back to Sydney as a senior writer. His goal was always an overseas posting – preferably somewhere with surf. Twelve months ago he became this paper’s Indonesia correspondent and, as he explained to the newspaper’s editor, Glenn Burge, the surf was only “hours away” from Jakarta.
“Morgan was incredibly popular,” Burge says. “He had a dry sense of humour and a laid-back attitude to most things in life. Jakarta was to be the perfect posting for him – a fascinating country to develop his knowledge of Indonesia and, indeed, Asia as a reporter – but also pretty attractive for someone who loved surfing.”
“I always figured Morgan would go a long way in journalism – perhaps one day a senior political writer in Canberra, or serial foreign correspondent.”
Early in 2005, he somehow managed to convince Burge to give him several months of leave without pay to go surfing in Central and South America. Then the Indonesia correspondent’s position was advertised and he applied from somewhere in South America.
If it wasn’t surfing, it was sailing. Morgan sailed with retired insolvency expert Max Prentice and his son Matthew for 15 years.
“Morgs was emotionally capable in the line of fire,” Prentice says.
Morgan was sailing on Prentice’s boat, She’s Apple II, in the treacherous Sydney to Hobart race in 1998. After battling 40 to 50-knot winds for about 24 hours, they dashed for shelter in Eden. From there Morgan filed a first-person account of the storm for the SMH.
“Even at a time of great emotion Morgs could keep a cool head and do things like work,” says Prentice. “It’s a tragic loss of a true friend and a good sailor.”
Morgan died just a week before his 37th birthday.
He was farewelled in Sydney at a memorial service on March 21 at St Andrews Cathedral by hundreds of his colleagues and friends and his family – his mother Dawn, father Peter and sisters Lucy and Caroline. The service was attended by Fairfax Media chairman Ron Walker, News Limited Chief John Hartigan, federal MPs Joe Hockey, Bruce Baird and Julia Gillard as well as Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty.
On Saturday March 24 at 11am a large group of Morgan’s surfing mates and some of his family paddled out on their boards off the south end of Sydney’s Bronte Beach to remember him.

Morgan was a character, a friend and a very good reporter.

He knew what he was good at, but also his weaknesses. He was never afraid to ask questions, no matter how they sounded, and was happy to take advice.

While people remember his laid-back, relaxed attitude to life, he was also a tenacious reporter who refused to be intimidated.

Party pauses to remember accident victims

Cynthia Banham ... recovering.
Photo: Andrew Taylor

THE injured Herald reporter Cynthia Banham was a special absentee guest last night at the annual Press Gallery Ball in Canberra.

Banham, who for three months has been battling serious burns, sent a message to colleagues who gathered at Parliament House with the nation's political and business leaders.

"Greetings from Ward 6 at Royal Perth Rehabilitation Hospital," read the message signed by Banham and her partner, the Herald Sun journalist Michael Harvey.

"We wish so very much that we could be with you tonight. We know the Garuda plane crash of March 7 affected the Parliament House community deeply. This much was evident from the many messages of support that flooded in to us during the days, weeks and months that followed."

Banham wrote with Harvey that it would be "hard for anyone in this room to imagine just how devastating the experience has been".

"Even now, it seems beyond imagining. Not a day passes, however, when we don't think of the colleagues whose lives were lost that awful morning.

"We are fighting to reclaim as much of our old lives as we can. It is going to be a long and difficult road but, together, through love and support for each other, we are working hard and we will be back home one day."

Alan Oakley, the editor of the Herald, said Banham was approaching the rehabilitation process with "her customary energy". "She has a long way to go, but all of us are humbled by the courage she has shown so far, and the progress she has made," he said.

Morgan Mellish, the Australian Financial Review Jakarta correspondent killed in the crash, was also honoured at last night's event. Proceeds from the ball are to be donated to the Burn Foundation and to Surf Aid - in honour of Mellish, who was a committed surfer.

Annabel Crabb
June 21, 2007 SMH

Newseum

Newseum is a non-profit museum of news and journalism that will reopen this year in Washington, DC. They plan to include Morgan in the Journalists Memorial. The memorial honors reporters, editors, broadcasters, and photojournalists who lost their lives reporting the news. The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial provides a preliminary list of journalists who died in 2007.

Mark Forbes talks with Australian Story

Journalist Mark Forbes talks with Australian Story about the ministerial visit to Indonesia that ended in disaster with Garuda flight 200 crashing in a field and killing 21 people, including five Australians. Mark Forbes is based in Jakarta and works for the Fairfax newspaper group.

PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

The More Things Change

Australian Story has screened a two-part documentary on Alexander Downer including his time in Indonesia before the Garuda 200 crash.

There are interviews with Morgan, Liz O'Neil and Cynthia Banham as well as Cindy Wockner, one of Morgans friends, and a couple of other journalists.

To prepare the two-part documentary, Australian Story filmed behind the scenes with Mr Downer, his family and his entourage during a tumultuous few weeks that ended in disaster in an Indonesian field when Garuda flight 200 crashed killing 21 people including five Australians. Some of those who died included journalists and officials who had been working closely with Mr Downer and who were well known to him.

You can view Part 2 HERE.

Angus Morgan Hui

Born at 1 minute past midnight on 9 March 2007

Georgie and I were both friends of Morgan and we decided to name our son Angus Morgan Hui.

This is very much out of respect for Morgan - we would be extremely proud of our son if he displayed but a few of the qualities that made Morgan such a great friend.

We all miss him very much and will continue to do so for a long long time...

Gary

Vice-Chancellor of The Australian National University

On a sombre note,
I was saddened to hear that two ANU alumni were among those who lost their lives in the Garuda Airlines crash at Jogjakarta Airport on 7 March.
On behalf of ANU, I extend my sympathy to the families of Allison Sudjarat and Morgan Mellish.
I also wish Cynthia Banham, another ANU graduate, well as she recovers after the incident.

Professor Ian Chubb AC,
Vice-Chancellor

On Campus. 2 April 2007

Planet Morgan

Laura Tingle ABC interview

Condolence Motion: Garuda Flight 200

House of Representatives
Date: 20 March 2007
I rise today to speak in support of the condolence motion moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition.
Today this parliament is honouring those five Australians whose lives were tragically lost when on 7 March Garuda flight 200 crashed.
Today we demonstrate our grief. Now and forever there is a bond between Liz O’Neill, Allison Sudradjat, Brice Steele, Mark Scott and Morgan Mellish. They lost their lives together far too soon when they had too much left to live for and with grieving families and grieving friends left behind.
But even as they stepped onto that Garuda flight they had something in common: they were going to work. And even though it was work in a far-flung destination they were doing what millions of Australians do every day. They said goodbye to their families and they went to work that day not knowing that it would be the last.
Many Australians have been touched by this tragedy and touched deeply by it particularly here in Canberra. I was particularly moved by an opinion piece written by Malcolm Farr in the Daily Telegraph on 9 March where he described a speech given by Laura Tingle about Morgan Mellish and this tragedy generally. He described the nature of the effect on Canberra in the following terms.
An unusual factor of the Garuda plane crash on Wednesday was that it struck to the core of three quite small communities, groups which are separate but interrelated in Canberra.
They were the communities of journalists, diplomats and federal police.
Each one of the groups is quite tiny and close-knit. Those in them know just about all the others personally or at a narrow remove. People retire but never really leave their community.
Members of each group spend much of their time tending to the tragedies of others, telling the stories of tragedy’s victims and easing the pain of those tragedy has left behind. In this case they were the ones left behind.
Let me echo those words.
Even Australians who did not know Liz or Allison or Brice or Mark or Morgan have been touched by this tragedy as well. Many Australians know what it is like to visit Indonesia, to jump on an internal flight, to run the gauntlet of the last-minute changes to flights and to nervously joke in a very Australian way about air safety even as you sit on the flight, and then behind the very Australian jokes to really be just that little bit nervous, to pay just that little bit more attention to the air safety demonstration, to strap that seatbelt on just that little bit tighter. But even as we do those things we never really think that it is going to happen to us. Then it does happen to five Australians and we are left with the shock of unexpected death, the grief and of course the unanswerable question—why? The randomness of this tragedy really does take your breath away. If only that last-minute ticket swap had not occurred; if only that other flight had not been missed—if only. They are all questions we will never know the answers to.
My condolences go out to the relatives and friends of those who have tragically lost their lives. These are the people who have lost so much. My thoughts go to all of those who were injured in this tragedy. But may I pause, Mr Speaker, to specifically offer my best wishes to Cynthia Banham and all those close to her and she fights to survive and come back from her own ordeal. We know she used her extraordinary physical fitness to help her survive when others did not and to escape the inferno which erupted when the plane skidded to a stop in those rice paddies. I know the thoughts of many are with her and with her partner and my friend, Michael Harvey. I trust that we will see her back in the press gallery, and though we will never see Morgan again I know he will be remembered.
Julia Gillard

Salutes to journo who thrived on the edge

Fairfax journalist Morgan Mellish was remembered as a "loving son, caring brother, fantastic uncle" by childhood friend Ben Hunter at a memorial service in Sydney today.

"The life of a foreign correspondent was full of excitement and adventure, and it was for Morgan," Mr Hunter said at St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral of the friend he called "Morgs".

"We will miss him as a mate, his smile and his determination to make the most of everything."

Reverend Dominic Steele, from Christians in the Media, spoke of the grief many were suffering when he spoke at the service at St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in Sydney.

"He died doing what he loved,'' Rev Steele said of the journalist, who was covering an Australian ministerial visit to Indonesia when he was killed.

He recalled a remark Mr Mellish made to his mother when he was growing up.

"He said, `Mum, I want to live as close to the edge as I can without falling off'."

A series of photographs of Mr Mellish with family and friends was displayed on large screens as mourners entered the cathedral.

Mr Mellish's girlfriend, Nila Tanzil, sat with Mr Mellish's parents and sisters throughout the service.

Mourners included Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Joe Hockey and Deputy Opposition Leader Julia Gillard, as well as representatives of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Federal Police and Fairfax.

Mr Mellish, who was The Australian Financial Review's Jakarta bureau chief, was one of five Australians killed when a Garuda Airlines plane exploded on landing at Yogyakarta airport in Indonesia on March 7.

He was cremated in a private funeral yesterday.

AAP