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Officials say no hint of cause of Air Philippines crash |
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April 22, 2000
MANILA, APR 21 (AP) - Investigators still "don't have a hint" of what caused an Air Philippines jet to crash, killing all 131 people aboard, including many on Easter holidays, in the country's worst air disaster, an airline official said Friday.
Searchers completed their recovery of the badly mangled remains of the 124 passengers and seven crew aboard flight 541, which crashed Wednesday on the resort island of Samal as it was attempting to land at nearby Davao city in the southern Philippines.
None of the bodies were intact and many were charred, said Samal Mayor Rogelio Antalan.
The plane "did not hit the ground sliding. It dropped from about 45 degrees," he said.
The pilot of the plane, which originated in Manila, reported low visibility minutes before the crash, according to an airport transcript obtained by The Associated Press. The airport does not have full equipment for instrument landings.
The 22-year-old Boeing 737-200 slammed into a coconut grove on a 450-meter (1,500-foot) hill, Antalan said.
The recovered remains were taken to a military camp, where 52 were identified by relatives, said Master Sgt. Ignacio Elminero, administrative officer at the camp hospital.
Five British forensic experts have been hired to help Filipino experts identify the rest, said Leah Sison, spokeswoman for Air Philippines.
She said investigators still do not know what caused the plane to crash. No problems were found in a standard maintenance check before the jet took off, she said.
"We don't have a hint yet on the cause," Sison said.
Searchers have recovered both of the plane's "black boxes" - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - which are being sent to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board in Washington for analysis.
According to the tower transcript, the pilot reported that visibility was only three miles (five kilometers) as he approached the airport, considered marginal for visual landings, according to Philippine aviation officials. Visibility was reportedly worse over Samal island.
The crash was the third serious transportation accident in the country in a week, following two ferry sinkings that killed at least 148 people. Nevertheless, boats, planes and highways were packed this week in Asia's largest Catholic nation because of Easter holidays, when many Filipinos return to their hometowns.
Samal, about 980 kilometers (610 miles) southeast of Manila, is the location of several beach resorts.
Antalan said authorities will probably built a memorial at the crash site and a road for access.
"Whether you like it or not, people will want to go there," he said. "We are a tourism island and we wanted people to come, but not this way."
Air Philippines began operations in 1996 and is one of a number of new airlines created after the industry was deregulated several years ago.
In 1998, a Cebu Pacific DC-9 jet crashed near the top of a fog-shrouded mountain in the southern Philippines, killing all 104 people aboard in the country's worst previous air disaster.
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