The co-pilot in last year’s Garuda crash has offered an emotional defence of his captain, Marwoto Komar, who is facing seven years’ jail over the accident that killed 21 people, including five Australians.

First officer Gagam S. Rochman told The Australian yesterday he and Captain Marwoto, who was arrested on Monday and charged with manslaughter, had “tried our best power to save the flight” as the Boeing 737-400 came in to land at twice the proper speed on March 7.

A National Transportation Safety Committee report released in October found Captain Marwoto ignored 15 automated cockpit warnings as he made the approach, describing the pilot’s “channelised” or “fixated” focus on landing at all cost.

Mr Gagam backed this assessment yesterday, saying that although he had called for the captain to abort the landing and make a second attempt, “because of the limited time he didn’t say anything, but just focused to save the flight”.

“You know (the crash), that was not because of our negligence,” Mr Gagam said. “We tried our best to save the flight, but we are human too.”

Speaking during a demonstration by Indonesian pilots in Jakarta opposing the criminal case against Captain Marwoto, Mr Gagam said reports shortly after the crash that the pair had a disagreement in the cockpit were untrue. Rather, he said, he had shouted at the captain to go around because “that was the proper procedure … to ask people to go around with yelling”.

Mr Gagam, who has not returned to flying duties, said he was still “in trauma” over the crash but was adamant there was nothing more he could have done to avert it.

Captain Stephanus, the Garuda pilots’ association chief, said yesterday he had spoken to Captain Marwoto by phone since his arrest and the 45-year-old was angry at being treated like a criminal. “He was made to wear short pants (as a prisoner),” Captain Stephanus said. “He was treated like a criminal 100 per cent … he was put in the same cell with a thief.”

Captain Stephanus said Captain Marwoto was beginning to accept his situation. “He’s feeling guilty,” he said.

Dozens of pilots met government officials at the national parliament to call for the charges against Captain Marwoto to be dropped, claiming the threat of criminal action would reduce safety standards in the industry.

“If this kind of thing is done to pilots, it will be a burden for them just to enter the cockpit,” Indonesian Pilots Association chief Manutar Napitupulu said.