Saturday, February 02, 2008 Rescuers recall Flight 387 mission By Annabelle Ricalde
THEY hiked through dense jungle vegetation, braving rain and snakes to get to the crash site of Cebu Flight 387 in Mt. Sumagaya.
Others like Air Force Technical Sergeant Abel Idusma had his hands full dispatching helicopters to brave the foul weather and land on makeshift helipads carved out on the side of the mountain.
Another rescuer, Bernardo Banuag, left his job as a porter at Lumbia Airport and hitched a ride to Claveria to join the growing army of volunteers gathering on the foot of Mt. Sumagaya.
In the days that followed the tragic plane crash, heroism flows freely in Mt. Sumagaya and valor was a common virtue among the hundreds of rescuers who scaled the mountain.
Ten years after their heroic acts in the rescue operations of Cebu Pacific Flight 387, these rescuers came together to remember those fateful days when they give their best for their fellow men.
February 2 was an ordinary day for Idusma who works as Disaster Preparedness Operations Specialist at the Philippine Air Force Tactical Operations Group (TOG) in Lumbia Airport.
"We were working in the office when we received word that the Cebu Pacific flight from Manila was delayed," Idusma narrated.
He said the flight was supposed to arrive around 11 a.m.
Idusma said around 12 p.m. they received another information, more urgent this time that the Cebu Pacific plane was declared missing by the Air Transportation Office and that a region wide communication search turned out nothing.
He said the Air Force immediately conducted their own communication search calling other bases in Cebu, Zamboanga, and Butuan cities but they too have not sighted the aircraft.
Idusma said they immediately activated a search and rescue control headquarters and called the De Oro Mountaineers Explorers Club and Oro Rescue 9000 for volunteers.
He said they sent two Huey choppers, the only available air assets in Lumbia at that time, to search the mountains 45 kilometers northeast of Cagayan de Oro.
The two Huey choppers grew into a small armada of helicopters as Armed Forces of the Philippines deployed more planes to join the search in the following days.
"We concentrated our initial search in the mountains in Gingoog City and Camiguin Island but the helicopters came back and reported seeing nothing," Idusma said.
He said soon they received additional information that the plane's last reported position was 60 kilometers northeast from Lumbia Airport.
"We made a new plot and we noticed that Mt. Sumagaya was inside it. It was the only mountain that we have not searched," Idusma narrated.
Idusma said he sent the helicopters back again this time with instructions to search Mt. Sumagaya.
On February 3, a day after it was declared missing, Air Force choppers found the wreckage of Cebu Pacific Flight 387 strewn on the side of Mt. Sumagaya. A rescuer described the impact site like that of "a meteor hit."
Waiting
Banuag with other porters were waiting for the Cebu Pacific flight to arrive that day. Two flights from Manila were scheduled to arrive that morning -- Cebu Pacific and a Philippine Air Lines (PAL) flight.
However, instead of Cebu Pacific arriving first, Banuag said it was PAL who landed first. But he said this did not cause any alarm among the relatives and porters who were waiting outside the airport since delays are common among Philippine civil aviation carriers.
But Banuag noticed something odd when the pilots of the PAL came down. Instead of going to the canteen for lunch as they regularly do, Banuag said he saw the pilots going to the ATO control tower.
Curious, Banuag said he followed the pilots and because he is a regular employee in the Lumbia Airport managed to get inside the ATO tower.
He said he saw the pilots talking with the radio operator reporting that they heard a short distress call coming from the Cebu Pacific DC9 plane.
"Timing pud nga bisaya ang pilot sa PAL mao toa nga nangutana ko unsay nahitabo (It was a good thing that one of the PAL pilot knows how to speak the bisaya dialect so I asked him what happened)," Banuag said.
That was when he had an inkling that something really bad happened to the Cebu Pacific Flight 387.
Banuag immediately volunteered to join the first team of search and rescue volunteers that assaulted Mt. Sumagaya.
Call for volunteers
Jerome Garcia, head of the De Oro Mountaineers Explorers (Dome) Club, said he was relaxing inside the old Nation theatre along Velez Street when he received a call from Idusma.
"Exactly 1:20 pm nadawat nako ang information from Abel naa pa gyud ko sulod sa sinehan (I received the call from Idusma at exactly 1:20 p.m. I was inside the movie house," Garcia told Sunstar Cagayan de Oro.
He said he quickly got out from the movie house and called other Dome members telling them about the emergency at hand. Many DOME members volunteered.
Garcia said the group brought their special climbing ropes and gear to the TOG headquarters that afternoon.
Dome was the first to arrive at the crash site after scaling Mt. Sumagaya for three days.
"Mga electric wires nga lain-lain og color ang first namo nga nakita (We saw electric wires of different colors first," Garcia said.
Then, the group stumbled into bits of human flesh in trees and jungle vegetations--a grim picture of the fate of the 104 passengers and crew aboard Flight 387.
Lessons
Ten years after, Idusma, Banuag, and Garcia said they could not imagined how the search and rescue operations was able to pull through because "everything was chaotic" during the entire campaign.
"Everyone wanted to be in command. All wanted to be interviewed by the reporters," Garcia said.
Banuag said the government missed the chance of learning the lessons of the Cebu Pacific search and rescue when they did not call the rescuers for an evaluation meeting.
He said one of the lessons that should be remembered is that there was no proper coordination on who will be sent to the crash site.
As a result, Banuag said many volunteers who were supposed to be there end up hunting for souvenirs messing up critical evidence in the crash investigation.
"We missed our chance to perfect the techniques. We hope there will be no more disasters with the same magnitude as Cebu Pacific. Otherwise we will again experienced controlled chaos among the rescuers," Garcia said.
