Boeing staff would hold key information relating to the aircraft's maintenance, said American lawyer Benton Musslewhite, referring to the crash of SilkAir flight MI185 on December 19, 1997, where all 104 people on board died.

Musslewhite said his team of engineers would analyse reports from the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), the US National Transportation Safety Board and Singapore police in a bid to determine the cause of the crash.

"Hopefully, the pre-trial will begin end of next year, and if all goes well, the trial could start in 2002," he said, adding the families wanted closure.

"They want to know what went wrong, what caused the crash, and that is something, I think, which no one has been able to give them."

The NTSC-led probe into the crash of the Boeing 737 said last Thursday it was unable to find a reason for why the plane plunged 35,000 feet into an Indonesian river. It ruled out the theory of deliberate pilot action due to insufficient evidence.

The Singapore-bound flight was flying from Jakarta.

Singapore police, who had opened a suicide-murder investigation, said they had closed their inquiry after finding no evidence of suicidal tendencies among the crew.

SilkAir is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines Ltd.