In a rare rebuke to a foreign counterpart, the board said investigations showed that Capt. Tsu Way Ming, once a stunt flyer with the Singapore air force, was in serious debt from financial market speculation at the time of the crash and had experienced several run-ins with the management of his airline.

The theory of suicide-murder has been aired before, but the safety board's report is the first time it has been publicly posed by investigators. Writing to the head of the Indonesian air safety agency, Oetarjo Diran, on Dec. 11, NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said evidence suggests that nothing was mechanically wrong with the Boeing 737 and that "the accident can be explained by intentional pilot action."

Indonesia says it conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the crash, but the US analysis said Indonesia ignored much of the factual evidence developed during a lengthy probe. That investigation involved US safety board investigators because the plane was manufactured in the United States.

Air crash investigations sometimes become highly politicized, with airlines, airplane manufacturers, pilots and governments pointing fingers at each other. The US analysis deflects responsibility away from the US-made plane; the Indonesian report tends to defend the pilot.

In releasing its report, the safety board risks triggering an incident like the one that erupted following the crash of an EgyptAir jumbo jet into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999. Initial reports indicated that a co-pilot deliberately flew the plane into the water during a flight from New York. That led to a public dispute with Egypt, which contended energetically that the co-pilot never would have done such a thing. Eventually, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President Clinton conferred on the crash, but no final report on the incident has been issued.

US sources said the Silk Air probe is different from that of the EgyptAir crash because the Indonesians not only ignored the possibility of deliberate pilot action, but also much evidence about aircraft systems and other matters. "A significant amount of pertinent factual information developed during the three-year investigation is either not discussed in the [Indonesian] report or not fully considered," the US report said.

Silk Air is a regional partner of Singapore Airlines. Its plane crashed on Dec 19, 1997, while en route from Jakarta to Singapore. From an altitude of 35,000 feet, the plane suddenly dove into the Musi River near Palembang. Within a few months, suspicion grew that the captain had deliberately crashed the plane. Information indicated he had had several run-ins with airline management in the months before the crash, U.S. officials say. In addition, he had serious financial problems.

The US report added to that, saying that the captain had engaged in risky trading in securities in Singapore for eight years, running up substantial losses. In addition, it said, he had significant credit card debts and a large loan with "no known liquid assets" to repay it. The financial service firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers audited the captain's finances for the Indonesian safety agency, but the agency never shared the audit with other investigators, the US report said.

The final Indonesian report said there "was no evidence found to indicate that the performance of either pilot was adversely affected by any medical or psychological conditions." Elsewhere in the Indonesian report, investigators acknowledge that "the combination of financial situation and his work-related events" could have caused stress to the captain. However, it said it was unable to determine the magnitude of the stress and its impact on the pilot's behavior.

The US report argued that only sustained operation of the controls by one of the pilots could have caused the plane to act as it did aerodynamically. The US report said there is no evidence that anything was mechanically wrong with the plane, contradicting an Indonesian statement that the evidence was inconclusive.

An analysis of the flight path strongly suggests manual manipulation of the controls, US investigators concluded. The wreckage showed that engines were set to high power and controls affecting the plane's flight angle were turned to nose-down position.

The US report said it is probable that the captain turned off the onboard voice and data recorders minutes before the crash, devices that investigators normally use to deduce the causes of accidents.

Meanwhile in Singapore Associated Press Dec 17 quoting a Straits Times report said the US report that said pilot suicide probably caused a deadly 1997 SilkAir Crash was likely biased because the jet was made by an American company.

The newspaper tends to reflect the views of Singapore's government, which keeps a firm grip on the media. In an editorial (Dec 17), it said a US National Transportation Safety Board report on the crash was "heavy on inference" and raised questions about "nationalistic bias."

Indonesian and Singaporean authorities, on the other hand, said they conducted thorough investigations of Tsu's personal life and that he was not suicidal.

After nearly three years and 30,000 man hours, the Indonesian report said investigators were unable to determine the cause "due to the highly fragmented wreckage and the nearly total lack of useful data, information and evidence." It said mechanical problems could not be ruled out because almost a quarter of the aircraft was lost in the jungle river.