Tragedy for a brave man

I met Alessandro Bertellotti (Ale) in 2004 when I was still working for Italian Institute of Culture, Jakarta. We met coincidentally in an occasion of European Film Festival. He took several images from the event to be aired in RAI (Italian National TV Station). That time I helped him to interview several Indonesian film practitioners. Til now our relation has grown better than before.

Last night, I met him and went out together for dinner and going to cinema. This is his million times to visit Jakarta, which as journalist, Jakarta is his favourite place to visit and get valuable news. He's in Jakarta to cover the Java Jazz Festival and also to cover a UNESCO meeting that will be conducted on March, 6 in Jogja. He told me about his plan to Jogja, and how he wasn't comfortable to wake up at 4 am to catch 6 am morning flight. That night with full stomach and full of laughing, we said goodbye and promised to meet up after he came back from Jogja.

This morning, as I arrived in the office, everybody was so panic with this hot news: "Garuda airline GIA 200 destination Jogja has crashed and burst into flames on landing in Adi Sucipto Airport, on the early Wednesday morning of 7 March 2007." I directly asked myself, whether Garuda is the earliest flight to Jogja. After confirming to my colleagues, I felt I had a heart attack. Garuda is the ONLY early flight to Jogja. Then, I screamed inside, "Ale!!"

Soon, I rushed to my administration staff and asked her to call Garuda and asked whether Ale was listed as one of Garuda GIA 200. What a shock! The answer was, YES!! "He is on that crashed plane," I said to Shilla. Shilla also knew Ale, I've introduced her to Ale last night. I felt really shocked, surprised and couldn't believe it. I just met him last night and I could tolerate if something happen with him. "Damn, I hope he's ok..." I said. I tried to call his cellular, but it was off. Then, I started to think bad, I was so overwhelming than I started to cry.

I couldn't stop thinking, if anything happened to him. Remember all the jokes we said last night and how we spent time in Java Jazz Festival. I tried to work, but my mind was occupied with the thoughts, predictions of his situation. At 1 pm, Shilla got a call from some man in Jogja, I was ready for something worse. Then, suddenly Shilla screamed Ale's name, "he's on the phone!" she said and passed the phone to me. On the other line, I heard Ale still talking, "tell Indri, I'm ok!" he said. After a short conversation with him and how he told me that he was ok with small injured.

He hang up the phone after saying he should go to finish the thing in Jogja and he would fly back to Jakarta in the evening. I was so relieved, happy and mad too... Not to him, but to the reality on how careless a people can be, in this case, the pilot. The news on the Garuda crash was a hot news and I was mad, sad and disappointed to the situation. Lately, Indonesia has been tested with series of accidents and disasters, killing even more people.

What's wrong with this life?


*The picture was taken the day before the Garuda crash.
Alessandro Bertellotti, Algooth (Bisnis Indonesia), Shilla and I.