While Captain Tsu Ming Way's gambling problems were mentioned in an interim report as a possible factor in his alleged suicide, a draft report may fall short of saying the Silk Air pilot disabled his first officer and sent the Boeing 737 into a death dive into the Musi River in Indonesia on December 19, 1997.

Sources in Singapore say the strong Muslim beliefs of the chief investigator of the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), Professor Oetarjo Diran, could prejudice a finding of pilot suicide as the single cause of the crash.

They say Professor Diran has admitted he does not want relatives of the victims receiving insurance monies from an event that was the will of Allah.

"Professor Diran does not want his investigation involved in litigation," one highly placed source said. "He says if today is your day to die, so be it. He said it is not proper to claim for God's will."

Last week the NTSC distributed copies of the draft report on the crash to representatives of Singapore, the base of Silk Air, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines; and the United States, where the aircraft was manufactured.

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) regulations allow 60 days for the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Technology and Boeing to respond to the report.

The ministry said last week that the final report was expected to be released by year's end.

Professor Diran's draft report is believed to use an ICAO convention to shield Captain Tsu from total guilt. Annex 13 of the July 1994 regulations says, "It is not the purpose of the investigation to apportion blame or liability."

While the principal aim of an ICAO investigation is to prevent an accident being repeated, many pilots argue the Silk Air crash cannot be resolved without mention of Captain Tsu's hatred of New Zealand pilots.

Tsu had been demoted from the position of line instructor pilot after a New Zealand co-pilot reported him for safety breaches in incidents in March and July 1997.

The first officer of flight MI 185 from Jakarta to Singapore on December19 was another New Zealander, Duncan Ward, 23, whom pilots suspect Tsu killed with a cockpit fire axe before disconnecting the flight data recorder.

The last sounds on the cockpit voice recorder were a pilot's chair sliding back on its rails, after which Tsu muttered he was going to the cabin. However, air traffic control reports Ward speaking normally after Tsu left the cockpit. A short time later the digital flight data recorder was also turned off. Minutes later the aircraft plunged into the Musi River.

One of the few public statements about the matter made by Professor Diran has been to describe as disturbing and unusual the time gap between each recorder ceasing to operate.