Another Version Of A Plane Crash Involving My Unseen Cousin

Another Version Of A Plane Crash Involving My Unseen Cousin
By Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.
Maasin City, Southern Leyte-Curiosity really paid off. Two regular height persons in white uniforms with winged insignia arrived at the Kinamot Sa Abgao restaurant in brgy. Abgao aboard a van one Tuesday afternoon at about 1:30p.m.when I was about to leave the place. Since I still have several copies of Manila and Cebu-based newspapers not sold yet, I decided to wait for them when the two entered the restroom. As they went out, one of them happened to pass by my way and I saw clearly that they were indeed pilots. When I asked where they came from, one of the pilots informed me that they have just landed at the Panan-awan Airport, which is about 15 kilometers away from Maasin City proper. Asked again if the Panan-awan airport runway has met the standard length, he responded in the positive.However, he said that there’s a portion of the landing field that he seemed to dislike, but I have forgotten the specific name of that part of the Maasin airport which he mentioned.
I then presented to one of them a copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. After short reading of PDI’s banner story, he signaled a negative sign. Thinking that as a pilot he might have known the past sad incident occurring at the Malaybalay, Bukidnon airport involving PAL’s Chief Flight Attendant Margot Perfecto, my unseen cousin, sometime in the 1960s,I asked him if some of the Philippine Airlines’ passenger planes can do static takeoffs. He claimed in the first place that he knew what really happened at Malaybalay,Bukidnon airport some time in the 1960s where a test flight plane F28 “Fellowship” was crashed when its pilot did a static takeoff. He said that he was still very young at that time and claimed that he was assigned in the aforesaid place as a pilot for ten years.
The pilot informed that the new test flight plane was designed to do a static takeoff according to the manufacturer of the plane. However, when the plane has prepared to leave the airport with a short runway, pilot in control Capt. Joe Sacro with the plane in full power did a static takeoff. The two-machine plane was able to lift itself up, he said, but one of its machines malfunctioned. So the pilot maneuvered the plane to land again, he said, but it tilted and outbalanced itself and hit the ground resulting to a fire.A firetruck rushed to the site and sprayed it with water thus spreading the fire.Shouts were heard. Everyone wanted to go out of the enflamed plane but the cabin/door got stuck. Those witnesses around who wanted to help rescue the six entrapped PAL personnel were also prevented from their intense desire due to intolerable heat emitting from the burning plane.(Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.)