If the Piper Lance2 PA-32-300 twin-engine plane that crashed in Bulacan last Sunday, which caused the death of 10 persons, was on a “maintenance check flight,” why was it carrying passengers?
This is the question the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) has to answer after its spokesman, Eric Apolonio, admitted that the plane was on a maintenance check when the accident happened.
“After its ferry flight to Laoag, it’s supposed to go to Itbayat in Batanes for a check flight, meaning to have its maintenance check or to check on other aircraft.”
“It probably is going to have a maintenance check, but the Caap approved its flight because the plane was good to go, otherwise it will not allow the plane to fly if there are problems,” Apolonio was quoted as saying in the local media.
Airport authorities, however, have different views.
A Caap official who requested not to be named because he is not part of the investigation said: “If the flight of Piper Lance2 PA-32-300 was for [a] maintenance-check flight, there should be no other on board except the pilot, copilot and the mechanics.”
“Check flights are prohibited from carrying passengers according to current aviation laws. At the same time, check flights are supposed to be conducted only within a certain distance from the Naia [Ninoy Aquino International Airport]. Why go all the way to Batanes to conduct the check flight there?” the source added.
An employee of the Flight Safety Inspectorate Service contradicted Apolonio, saying: “ I am 100-percent sure it was not a maintenance- check flight,” and agreeing that check flights are not supposed to carry passengers other than those checking the airplane.
He added, however, that only the flight plan of the plane would reveal the airplane’s actual purpose. “The flight plan is in Plaridel, Bulacan,” the source said.
The source, who asked not to be identified, said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) is on top of the investigation. The AAIB chief Renier Baculinao told the BusinessMirror: “Definitely, it was not a maintenance check.”
He agreed that, if it was a maintenance check, the airplane would have simply gone around within the vicinity of the airport: “It would have flown only on the traffic pattern around the Naia.”
He said, however, that the investigation is going on to establish what kind of flight the pilot wrote in his flight plan.
The six-seater, single-engine aircraft crashed upon takeoff from Plaridel Airport at 11:21 a.m. because it was not able to gain height and got snagged on a high-power electric line, as video of the scene would show.
According to eyewitnesses, they heard the plane’s engine sputter before the high-power lines caught it. The plane then tumbled into a residential area in Purok 3, Barangay Lumangbayan, Plaridel, Bulacan, where a family of five was reportedly having lunch.
Senior Supt. Romeo Caramat, provincial director of Bulacan Police Provincial Office (PPO), confirmed the identities of the victims aboard the plane as Captain Ruel Meloria; Romeo Huenda[ chief mechanic, Alicia Necesario; Maria Vera Pagaduan; and Nelson Melgar.
Also killed while having lunch were Risa de la Rosa, her mother Louisa Santos, 80, and children John John, 17, Timothy, 11, and Trish, 7.
The Bulacan PPO said they were still conducting a follow up investigation to verify why the Piper Lance2 PA-32-300 aircraft crashed, as witnesses have different versions of what happened before the crash.
1 comment
simply put they have NO IDEA, their just doing lip service like PNP an DoDirt