The Victims of the Amazing Philippine Aviation

 

Recently there was a C-130 crash. The following miserable data could be gleaned from a visit to the crash site:

 

Arrival at scene, instant image — dagat, occasional fishermen and banca

Immediate environment of the air disaster — dagat

Videotape of crash site — maraming tubig

Air craft impacting — dagat

Impact heading — degree latitude, degrees magnetic, degree longitude, dagat

Air craft cockpit — nasa ilalim ng tubig, don’t ask

One third of main cabin — sa tubig din

Fuselage

Aft fuselage part — recovered from dagat daw?

Rear fuselage — so far recovered from dagat, daw

Engines

Possible parts– don’t ask

Wings

Right wing — don’t ask, look in dagat

Left wing — don’t ask, look in dagat

Landing gear — dagat

Altitude of First strike on impact — degrees magnetic, dagat

Seats and harness — dagat

Survivors — none, kinain dagat

(Anyone who didn’t want to return to family? Investigate.)

Remains

None — boots, uniforms, IDs, wallets? dagat

Disaster pouches —

Metal splatter, hot spots — who would know if there was sabotage?

Cabin floor collapse — how to know? ask dagat

Components outside impact swath — unknowable, ask dagat

In-flight structural damage — ask dagat

Temperature on ground — immaterial, ask tubig

Investigation On Site Report — report about langoy langoy sa ibabaw by divers, cannot dive deep

Personnel on the scene account — puro dagat

Possibilities

Dagat rises on high tide

Dagat subsides on low tide

Airplane still in the deep

 

Philippine Air Force Gen. Cadungog will have to explain a lot to the families of the victims. PAF cannot investigate. PAF can’t find the bodies. Fishermen and other people found small pieces of wreckage and personal items, that was all. If the bodies of the casualties were charred, the water would have swallowed the burnt flesh and ash. In an abnormal circumstance such as this, if there was an NTSB and foreign funding was provided for the agency there may have been enough equipment for personnel to make a dive into the 600 deep waters, a marine vessel of NTSB to bring both instruments and personnel to the site, and so on.

 

But there is no safety agency in the country. Sec. Mendoza, his people, the Department of Budget, Congress, the office of Madame Gloria, we all wonder what they’re doing after Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Jose Marcelo Ejercito all failed to put up such a vital agency that vibrantly exists in other countries including the small ones like Singapore; even HongKong, a city state, or New Zealand (although NZ is not necessarily just a small town state) I think, have their very own. Some African countries that are underdeveloped may even have their own, it’s a real shitty situation for RP.

 

The Philippine Navy even suffered its own air mishap earlier this year. No one seemed to bother about the crash since the people in the air craft and the pilot did not die, suffering only bruises and cuts.

 

There seems to be something terribly wrong. What is going on with aviation in the country? Some fools are drumming up issues like aviation should get less attention because the country is suffering from a food crisis. PR girl Ellen Tordesillas (who lately teamed up with Yvonne Chua of Manila Standard, Booma Cruz of Probe TV and ABS-CBN, Jennifer Santiago, Luz Rimban, etc. to form a new PR group called VERAFILES) blogged that RP has too many international airports that it is remiss at managing the food deficit. The article in Ellen’s blog was written by Ernesto Pernia.

 

No self-respecting country will scrap its aviation. Ellen and Mr. Pernia should try blogging about more safety in the Philippine aeronautical highway than bitching about food. Everyone recognizes the problem about our oil and food crises, but there is little attention being given towards our safety in land, sea and air. For God’s sake, maybe even a thousand road mishaps have happened all over the country that should never have occurred at all. The Sulpicio and other sea mishaps are now lost items of human memory, except those of the survivors and the bereaved families of the recent sinkings. If we all forgot that there were no less than twenty — that is 20 in numerics — marine vessels, big and small boats that went down into the deep seas during Typhoon Frank’s onslaught that would have been very sad indeed.

 

Although in fairness to Ellen and Mr. Pernia, the international wire is fraught with bad news about the airline industry. Due to high gasoline, diesel, crude prices, the high stake of flying by air has driven away many customers. Those that want to go to destinations fast are merely compelled by circumstance to do so. It might even be said that aviation all over the world is currently, temporarily, a dying industry. But look at the small air lines in the country advertising low rates, they are trying to bolster their shrinking egos perhaps, but there is more to saving the industry than just letting it die.

 

Here in the country, government has created the strong republic nautical highway and the many new RORO destinations has instantly become a popular route for commuters. Mainly because it is cheap. But an aeronautical highway, is very long into the future. Dr. Enerico Sampang, President of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics (currently website not available, but Wiki has some brief highlights about Philsca) dreams of an aeronautical highway. Again, that will be in the future. The institution of a colleague of Dr. Sampang from the aeronautical education community just suffered another airplane crash when a trainer plane with a student pilot in it crashed just after the C-130 went down.

 

What is government to do? In a situation like the one prevailing in the country’s aviation industry, so much needs to be done and it is not simply buying one radar for Davao. It is not merely suspending or even taking away the franchise of a floating coffins service provider like S-Peruwisyo Lines. No one has even lifted a finger to thoroughly investigate what happened to the 20 odd other boats that sank during Typhoon Frank’s fury. No one is trying to make policy or much less, policy sponsorship or much, much less, unified policy advocacy for safety.

 

Safety. Should anyone really care for it? If people like Ellen who are complaining about food, people like Vice Gov. Emmanuel Piñol are complaining about the land they don’t own will be given back to their rightful owners, people like Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno and his colleagues – specially that fixer and wheeler-dealer Antonio Carpio will be worried about a judicial revolt that will rain fame, money, favors, women and love and passion and torrid sex on their supremest house, the political opposition flukes about when they will get to strangle a small president with their angry fingers, the ultra-right about when they can take over the country in behalf of a few politicians and greedy businesspersons, and the poor when they get to be rid of their poverty, no one will be thinking a bit about aviation. What is that shit anyway?

 

No one outside of the affected will even say, the recent crashes are a really sad day for our aviation. We grieve deeply for the families of those that were victims of the recent crashes.

 

If our efforts do not go to naught, some day, we shall pay a tribute to all of your kin that died and any small or large indemnity due them will go to you, the bereaved and grieving. Lose not your little hopes for that day…