Entrapped In A Burning Plane

Entrapped In A Burning Plane
Why Airline Companies Should Not Allow Its Pilots To Do Static Takeoffs
By Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.

Maasin City, Southern Leyte-Airline companies should not allow its pilots to do static takeoffs for whatever reason or cause to avoid unexpected crash.
This information I have learned from an account written by Leandro D. Quintana, former PAL public relations officer when my unseen cousin Margot Perfecto, a flight stewardee of Lahug,Cebu City was one of the 6 PAL employees who perished in a plane crash in Malaybalay,Bukidnon on April 27,1967.
The aforementioned revelation was the result of my curiosity, when one evening while I was on google,the name of my unseen cousin Margot Perfecto re-emerged in my mind. I typed her name inside a small searchbox provided by Google .com and clicked search. A few seconds later the search engine presented several names of Margot Perfecto, not in close-in follow suit highlights but separated.
There’s only one Margot Perfecto whose two closely related names were boldly highlighted. It has a clue sentence as guide to the entire article. I clicked it. There I was led to website based on Western USA. The article entitled “Air Crashes Revisited-Remembering Fallen Colleagues” was posted March 10, 2010 above the interface of the website, which served as the banner story on that date. It was written by Leandro D. Quintana, PAL’s former public relations officer during their employment of the said airline with Margot in the 1960s.
I have read the entire article and learned that the principal cause of the plane crash in Malaybalay, Bukidnon involving my cousin in Cebu was when the pilot in control Capt. Joe Sacro with the plane in full power tried to do a static takeoff because of the airport’s short runway. But it failed to work as expected.
Instead the plane F28 “Fellowship” under test flight caught fire and the Malaybalay firetruck came and doused the ill-fated plane with water, and the fire spread. People claimed they heard shouting inside the cabin but they could not open the door. It was stuck and the heat from the fire was intolerable.
The fatalities, aside from Capt. Sacro and Margot Perfecto, were Capt. Pete Mallari, Captain Tom Gallego, a check pilot who wanted to help evaluate the plane, two PAL employees who worked at PAL centers, Joe Jueco and Vicente “Titong” Gador.
Captain Gallego and my unseen cousin Margot, according to the author, have just landed in Mactan Airport on their trip from Manila. They were summoned a few minutes after their landing by their boss to go with the test flight aboard F28 “Fellowship” plane bound for Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
The abovementioned tragic story of a plane crash where all the PAL employees aboard were burnt alive- a painfully bitter and ruthless death-was in great contrast to what I have heard from my late mother Lourdes Almendras Monte de Ramos. She told me that Margot Perfecto was one of those who perished in a plane crash in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.She said that according to the information she had gotten, the plane was flying at high altitude under foggy surroundings. The pilot could not see what was ahead of him until the plane hit the mountain and the plane crashed killing all aboard.
Where did she got that kind of twisted information? Who provided her that kind of twisted report? What was the purpose of giving her that kind of irresponsible reporting of such a sorrowful tragedy? Was the informer or pseudo reporter wanted to sensationalize a plane crash? Or was she/he trying to make it appear more easily acceptable to the bereaved kins and relatives than what was really taking place where all the 6 hapless victims were trapped alive in a burning plane? Every reporter or journalist should strive to give or share a report-tragic or non-tragic-responsibly devoid of any baseless embellishments.
By the way, how did I know my unseen cousin when I have not seen her in person even once while she was still alive? I found out thru the article of Mr. Quintana that she is not a mere flight stewardee but a chief flight attendant of the Philippine Airlines at that time.
My mother Lourdes when she was still alive used to visit her cousin Tita Angeles, Margot’s mother who with her family was living in Lahug, Cebu City near the old airport. She would be staying in Cebu for more than a week or two. Tugging with her was my younger brother Emmanuel (nickname Nonoy, but sometime in the 1980s he changed his nickname to Manny, like Manny Pacquiao whose real name is also Emmanuel).
He was the favorite in the family being the youngest son from her first marriage. Favoritism really would always exist in some families. Who among the parents would dare say that he/she has no favorite son or favorite daughter? Some parents would of course say that all of his/her children were treated equally..But based on observations, favoritism, really exist in some families.
Because of favoritism or perhaps to lessen my mother burdensome watch in bringing the two of us in tow, she chose to bring only with her, Emmanuel. What I would be enjoying just to listen were her stories shared with me every time she and Nonoy would arrive in Ozamis City (my second home where my siblings and I have lived and grew up together with my cousins, uncles and aunts inside the compound of Lolo Jose Almendras, the younger brother of my late grandmother Marcela Almendras- Monte de Ramos since I and Emmanuel were still kids) from Cebu.
She would then be sharing with me some of their activities while in Cebu City: where they have gone to, or what they were watching in some movies and what she was doing while in the house of Tita Angeles. She also mentioned about a loyal househelper.She also mentioned Tita Angeles’ children named Gregorio,Ingrid , Winnie and Tita Angeles’s younger son and the former’s younger sister who was working in a bank and chose to drink black coffee than sugared coffee and whose name I have already forgotten.
By her story I came to know that her youngest son was considered “weak” in the family. She said that before sleeping that boy would be served with one glass of milk before going to bed. And I could sensed that my younger brother Emmanuel would in some occasions felt envious because he perhaps could not drink milk like what his cousin was enjoying every night. And maybe occasionally he could also drink some milk thru the courtesy of the loyal househelper or by mom’s request.
Mother disclosed that when Margot died in a painfully sorrowful plane crash,Tita Angeles was so deeply grieved that for several days she seemed not to be comforted with some consoling words from close kins and friends who swarmed to their residence to express their condolences. She could not accept the sudden and untimely death of her dear daughter who was a graduate in Commerce major in Accounting and had passed the board exam for CPA.
AT that time, my mother revealed, being an accountant has had little income compared to being a flight stewardee in an airline like the Philippine Airlines. So she chose to be a flight stewardee than to remain as an accountant by applying at PAL office in Cebu and was accepted. She has the height, the beauty and the brain: the first two of the requirements that an applicant for a flight stewardee must possessed.
Some of Margot’s pilots-friends, in order to show their sympathy and compassion of what had happened to Margot, and to alleviate Tita’s deep sorrow and loneliness emanating from the lose of her dear daughter, had decided to move to Tita’s residence as lodgers, intimated my mother who might have been there beside her cousin during the latter’s bereavement or maybe what she got was a belated story of the crash.
A couple was hired whose assignment was to open the arriving pilots who would be going home either in the dead of night or at dawn to sleep after their duties. The pilots would be arriving at different hours and so the couple must be alert enough to hear the pilots’ knocking at the door. At the time my mother decided to marry again and settled in Hinundayan (located in the Pacific towns of Southern Leyte) with her second husband, a widower(who has also his own children), her visit to her cousin in Cebu has become occasional.
After my graduation in High School at the Immaculate Conception College in Ozamis City I went to Southern Leyte and stayed there for awhile. Later in less than two years, I decided to go to Iligan City where my elder brother Rodolfo had lived.I went to Marawi City where I worked as a houseboy to an Ilocano doctor name Dr. Almazan who became fluent in speaking Maranaw after living in Marawi City for several years. He was one of the favorite doctors among the Maranaws .Two years later the Doctor’s family moved to Manila to follow-up their applications as immigrants to the USA and I joined with them. MY purpose in going with them was not only to see what Manila is but to look for a job as well. When we arrived in Manila I continued to work with the doctor’s family until their departure to the USA was scheduled. That was the time that I also separated from them and starts looking for my butter and bread in the business jungles of Metro Manila.
Still driven by my curiosity, I tried to scan the pages of a Metro Manila telephone directory.Inisde the pages I found the name Ingrid Perfecto. I dialed the number given together with their address of the apartment where they were renting. Somebody answered me on the second line and asked if the number I had contacted was where the house of Ingrid was located. I received the confirmation and took down the address of the apartment somewhere in one of a district In Makati.
A few days after I went to the said place by asking and looking at the house number, I had finally located their rented residence .I knocked the iron gate and someone, obviously a househelper came out. There I have met Ingrid Perfecto, her younger brother Winnie and his two daughters. The one that opened the gate was the loyal househelper whom my late mother was talking about as one of the characters in her stories she shared with me.
Since then I have, from time to time, would visit them in Makati, most particularly on weekends. I came to know later that one of Winnie’s daughters was named after his late elder sister Margot. The second Margot was akin to the first Margot, her aunt. She looked tall even still in her younger age. After we introduced each other for the first time, she told me that she was a grade six pupil at the International School where children of different nationalities were enrolled. On the walls I saw some paintings and drawings pasted on various positions. Both works were well done. She proudly disclosed that she did it all by herself. I have sensed then that she is a born artist. The younger Margot in the family is like my first cousin Pastor Doring Monte de Ramos, Jr. son of my uncle Pastor, the younger brother of my late mother.
He inherited the talent of uncle Pastor’s who concentrated on learning how to be a good mechanic under the tutelage of my grand-uncle Jose Almendras in Ozamis City, instead of focusing and devoting himself to develop his latent talent in arts. Not one of Lolo Jose’s sons has the interest on being a good mechanic. Because of this Lolo Jose chose his nephew (my uncle Pastor) to be his amateur assistant mechanic in his shop. It seemed that all the knowledge that my grand-uncle has possessed as a mechanic was passed on him.
Turning into a professional mechanic later in life, he has repaired several defective vehicles of different kinds and models while working at the DPWH where many diploma-certified graduate mechanics in automotive course who relied on mechanical books have failed to repair some defective trucks, bulldozers or cars dumped in motorpools. But due to the Marcos’ Directives that nepotism was prohibited in the Government Service during his regime, my uncle Pastor despite his good service as a mechanic was not promoted into a regular or permanent employee. The head or the District Engineer of the DPWH at that time in Southern Leyte was our relative. He decided to go back to Ozamis City where he worked again as a mechanic in a government office. He has passed the practical mechanical test conducted by the CSC officials whose passing was equivalent to a Civil Service Eligibility passer. His passing has had entitled him for being a qualified pensioner at the time he has retired.
Going back to our topic, it seemed that our family lineage has the idiosyncratic trait of profound endearment to honor our patriarchs or matriarchs by reviving their names and use it to christen grand-daughters or grand-sons in the family tree to perpetuate their names from generations to generations of our descendants.
The name Pastor, I have discovered from stories of our elders, was the name of my great-grandfather Pastor Almendras who hails from Laoag, Ilocos Norte. Lola Ilang has her youngest son named Pastor Almendras Monte de Ramos. And this name was also passed on to his eldest son Pastor, Jr., the bearer of his father’s talent in arts. Lolo Jose, the younger brother of my Lola, has his youngest son also named Pastor Cantago Almendras. While Lola ilang’s Pastor was a mechanic, driver and a fireman, Lolo Jose’s Pastor was a basketball player, and a trumpet player who could speak fluently the Chinese language. He was also a radio announcer in Ozamis City and was married to a medical practitioner. He has two children: Pepito (reviving the nickname of Lolo Jose, and Pamela who are both nurses)
I am thankful that his junior has inherited it and was also be doing some art works .Some of our cousins in Ozamis who from time to time would request him to paint or draw in their favour, partcularly when they have some school projects .My cousins also know how to draw but they preferred Pastor Junior to do it as he could do it much better than them.
And here we could connect that both kins-Pastor Jr.(also in turn the uncle of Margot, the second, her niece)-have one in common: they are in-born artists.However,these two close relatives have not meet each other yet due to distances where they were residing. But both of them I have encouraged to take up fine arts to hone their talents to the fullest.
When I visited Ozamis City many years ago,I have met my first cousin and advised him to take up Fine Arts so that his talent would be developed more.Nevertheless,at that time he was about to work in an inter- island shipping company, an experience that is required if one has to apply as a seaman abroad, I was told. But I have repeatedly advised him to take up Fine Arts when he decided to stop working as a seaman after several years in the stint. Like what I have admonished to my first cousin, the same kind of intensity of advice did I convey also to my niece.
Before she could finish her schooling at the International School in Makati, she intimated that after she finish and pass the seventh grade, they would all be fetched by Tita Angeles and brought them to the USA. But I have the belief that it would be Ingrid who was going to fetch them since their Lola Angeles was already much older than she was still living in Cebu.

Before my relatives in Makati went to the USA,I stopped visiting them for some reason. I think that was the time when I went to the province of Zambales and lived there for about four months at the residence of my medical employer’s parents.
I was also able to visit my aunt, another first cousin of my mother in San Fernando,Pampanga, who got married to a Kapangpangan when the two of them met at Siliman University in Dumaguete City where both my student-aunt and Tiyo Tony who chose to take up his Law course instead of in Manila. After sometime I was also able to reach the place of faraway Tuguegarao City and the Cagayan Valley known as the rice granary of the Philippines. WE arrived at the place the following day at about 10:00 a.m.We left Tutuban Terminal in Tondo at about one in the afternoon and have a temporary stopover in Santiago, Isabela at past 10:00p.m. for a short sleep until 2:30a.m.Then the passenger bus proceeded to our destination and reached Tuguegarao City at about 9:00a.m.We, including the younger brother of my employer’s wife boarded a jeepney and reached an isolated place after travelling for an hour.From there we took a calesa bound to a vast span of rice fields for less than an hour. There was a small house in the middle of the farm. The houses were far from each other. If any untoward incident would happen in that place, it would be hard for a neighbor/s to help another neighbor to provide assistance of any kind, particularly in emergency cases. It was summer when we were there. The place was cold at dawn and there was thick fog that surrounds the area that gradually vanished as the sun rises on the horizon. Cagayan Valley was one of the rare places that a traveler should visit. That was the place where for the first time I was able to see a very vast span of ricefields covering hundreds and thousands of hectares in square kilometers.
In that place we have experienced eating camote (sweet potatoes) and talbos ng camote (odlot sa camote or camote sprouts) for several days after consuming our viands and rice provisions. Due to the rare availability of jeepney transport in the area at that time, one cannot just go to the town as he wanted to. That kind of menu has make us also having loose bowels, a kind of natural cleansing in our digestive system that we have unexpectedly undergone until somebody in that place bought some rice on our behalf that was enough for several days of our consumption.
Back to my main topic, since the time I stopped visiting them (my relatives) in Makati I have lost contact with them. I hope that they are in good situation now in the US and that Margot and her younger sister have finished courses that they really love to take. I hope that my niece Margot and first cousin Pastor Junior have taken a course in Fine Arts for that is the suitable course to take to fully develop their respective talents to the fullest and could also serve as their source of living for their respective families.
Most probably also, Ingrid, Margot and her younger sister who I have already forgotten her name have already married and have their own families. Nonetheless, that loyal househelper must have been back to her family in Leyte as she once told me. She said before that she was included for those whom Tita Angeles have petitioned to be with them in the USA. Yet she said she cannot leave her family behind in Leyte and she would be going home when all of them at the Makati apartment would be going abroad.
I know that we have some other relatives in Cebu City but I have no knowledge about them and did not know them except perhaps when we bump each other and converse with them and talk about our family’s background. Twice while I was still in Ozamis and became Lolo Jose's constant guide in going down the stairs to take a bath,as he became blind when he reached the age of 70 plus,he mentioned in two occasions the name of his sister Margarita.Is this not the grandmother of Margot,my cousin? Is not the name Margot derived from the name of Lola Margarita, which is a little deviation from the latter's real name?
On the other hand,I would like to repeat that all airline companies ,not only PAL(Philippine Airlines), should not allow its plots to do static takeoffs of any sort or for any reason because it’s risky and would endanger the lives of people who are aboard the plane. Not to mention that such kind of passenger airplanes are not design to do such kind of a maneuver.
Moreover I have learned on discovery channel many years ago, that is sometime in the 1980s: there was a new invention of an aircraft, a cousin of a helicopter that could do a static takeoff. It can also do a “static landing”, that is by gradually lowering the plane to land in a space where a runway is no longer necessary. It is principally use for a reconnaissance, surveillance, carrying wounded soldiers in the battle field, in carrying foods and medical provisions in conflict areas or use in medical missions in farflung areas.
Furthermore, I want to extend my best regards and best wishes to some of my cousins who I did not see anymore for so many years-Delia,May,Bambi,Emilio Junior,Jiji, Jaime,Rosemay,Marianne,Marichu,Connie and her family,Villa and her family in the US Mainland,Gerardo Junior and his family in Hawaii,USA,Mary Jane,Tikboy,Marelyn,Katherine,Junior Ramos,Efren among others.I would like also to extend my best regards and my best wishes to all my classmates in Ozamis City.I hope that they are also fond of reading articles and blogs in the internet.(Quirico M. Gorpido,Jr.)