MANILA – Philippine Air Force (PAF) investigators have initially concluded that bad weather caused the Bell 412 helicopter assigned to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, to crash on April 7 in a heavily-forested area in a town in Ifugao province in the Northern Luzon highlands, a PAF spokesman disclosed.
The spokesman said their investigation showed the pilots tried to avoid hitting a low cloud formation and thick fog, causing the aircraft to touch trees on Mount Pulag in a remote village of the town of Tinoc in Ifugao.
The crash killed all the eight passengers and crewmen on board, including close aides of President Arroyo, identified as Press Undersecretary Jose Capadocia, Undersecretary Marilou Fostrom, the presidential appointments secretary; assistant director Perlita Bandayoan of the Presidential Management Staff; and Brigadier General Carlos Clet, the President’s senior military aide.
The victims were supposed to serve as the President’s advance party for the inspection of the Halsema Highway, one of the major road networks in the Cordillera Administrative Region, scheduled on April 8 when they met the tragedy.
The PAF findings were announced amid still unconfirmed reports that the helicopter was earlier used by Congressman Mikey Arroyo of Pampanga province in Central Luzon, the President’s eldest child.
Reports are that Mikey used the helicopter until 3:30 p.m. on the day it crashed. PAF officials and private pilots said it is an unwritten rule in aviation that nobody flies over the mountain provinces in Northern Luzon in late afternoon because of fog that makes visibility very poor.
At that time, Malacanang said President and her family were in Baguio City, the “summer capital of the Philippines,” where they were to spend the Holy Week which marked the passion and death of Jesus Christ.
Records showed the helicopter took off from the Loakan Airport in Baguio afternoon on April 7 for an ocular inspection of the highway that was to be visited by the President the following morning.
In their findings, the spokesman said PAF investigators said the pilots evaded a low cloud formation and thick fog engulfing a crucial mountain pass enroute to Lagawe town in Ifugao after taking off from Loakan.
“We have an initial picture that tends to point to weather as the major factor for the accident, considering that our pilots were experienced and highly competent and that the aircraft was fully operational,” said the spokesman, citing a major portion of the report of PAF investigators.
In particular, the spokesman said evidence retrieved from the crash site indicated that the engines were on normal operating conditions during the impact, which showed no engine malfunction.
The helicopter, the spokesman said, crashed 6,900 feet above sea level between Mounts Mangingihi and Mount Pulag in Tinoc town.
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[...] Opposition Senator Rodolfo Biazon and his son, Congressman Rufino Biazon of suburban Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila raised the questions after Philippine Air Force (PAF) investigators initially blamed bad weather for the crash. [...]