By Ronron
May 1, 2007
The chief of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) said on Tuesday that there were no engine and pilot errors in last Saturday’s crash of a military chopper in Lapu-lapu City, Cebu that claimed the lives of nine people.
PAF chief Lt. Gen. Horacio Tolentino said in a phone interview that no trouble was found on the engine after it was examined at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City, and the pilot who survived claimed that everything was normal during their flight until a kite got in their way.
“So, the findings is that there was no problem with the engine… There was also no pilot error. It’s just that a kite got entangled with the helicopter on the air that’s why it crashed,” Tolentino said.
The accident investigators from the PAF, however, has yet to submit their final report to him, Tolentino said.
But he said that a proof of the initial finding is the nylon thread recovered from the swash plate assembly (SPA) of the chopper, which is located right below the rotor blade.
Tolentino disclosed that the nylon measures two millimeters in diameter, but its length could not immediately be determined since it remains entangled at the SPA and some parts of it already melted due to heat generated by the rotation of the blades.
Tolentino said this caused the rotor of the chopper to stop rotating, causing the crash.
The PAF chief revealed that the accident site was supposed to be a no-kite-fly zone, based on a regulation by the Air Transportation Office, which prohibits kites 2.5 miles from the center of the airport.
Tolentino noted that the chopper was already about to land when the accident happened, and therefore must have been just 400 to 500 feet above ground when the chopper’s blades ate up the kite’s nylon thread.
Tolentino said so far, the investigators have yet to identify the kite-flyer. He said he also expects no one will surface to admit as the owner of the kite that caused the crash.
But just in case the kite-flyer shows up, he said the PAF is not bent on filing criminal charges since they are treating what happened as an accident.
“We have no plan (to file charges). We are not blaming anyone for what happened,” Tolentino said.
He said he just hopes that the local government and other agencies in Lapu-lapu City will strictly enforce the no-kite-flying policy on the identified zones in the island.
“What I really wanted is that a legislation banning the flying of kites in the controlled zones of the airport be passed. I heard that the acting mayor of Lapu-lapu city has committed to issue a sort of executive order to that effect,” Tolentino said.
Recently relieved Lapu-lapu City Police chief Supt. Louie Oppus, who held the post for more than two years, said that as far as he can recall, this was the first crash incident in the city involving a kite.
But Tolentino said the same cause of aircraft or chopper accident was already reported in other parts of the country in the past, like in Jolo, Sulu where, in some instances, enemies of the government fly kites to down military choppers.
“But so far, this is the most tragic among the accidents that were caused by kites because we have a lot of fatalities,” Tolentino said.
Aside from the nine fatalities, which include two PAF personnel and seven civilians who were aboard two tricycles where the chopper crashed into, two other PAF personnel were wounded in last Sunday’s accident – the pilot, Capt. Allan Villagarcia and crew member Sgt. Johnny Reyes.
The PAF leadership had already extended assistance, including financial, to the families of the killed victims./DMS
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