Sunday, May 14, 2006
Cessna plane crashes, hits car
CEBU CITY -- A Cessna 150 aircraft, which was on a training flight with a Korean student, crash-landed beside the road in Barangay Ibo, Lapu-Lapu City at 3:50 p.m. Saturday.
The plane failed to reach Runway 22 of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
The pilot, Captain Mark Dalasigan was rushed to the hospital with a broken nose, while his Korean student was unscathed, said Area I Manager Engineer Rodolfo Perez of the Air Transportation Office (ATO).
A passing Honda car was damaged when the aircraft hit it.
General Manager Adelberto F. Yap of Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) said the pilot and his student seemed to have underestimated the distance in reaching runway in their landing maneuver.
Yap, himself a pilot and a former ATO assistant secretary, said it was good MCIAA banned the barbecue business in the area. Otherwise, several people may have died or gotten injured.
Customers usually gathered at the area between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Yap said the private aircraft belongs to Avia Tours Flight Training School owned by one Jessup Bahinting, an occupant of a hangar at the general aviation area of Mactan airport.
Perez refused to make official statements about the accident because under their policy, the ATO in Manila will send investigators from the Flight Safety Division to determine its cause.
"Suffice it to say that we are happy that nobody died during the accident," Perez said.
He said the maintenance crew of the flying school dismantled the aircraft to clear the area of wreckage that could block the road.
"The fence constructed by MCIAA beside the road to prevent the entry of barbecue vendors cushioned the impact of the crash," Perez said.
Mark Villanueva, chief of the ATO Tower Station, the crash site is just 50 meters from the touchdown zone of Runway 22.
He said that because the weather was good at the time, the investigators who are expected to arrive today will determine whether the accident was caused by pilot error or mechanical error.
Villanueva said that as a standard operating procedure, Avia Tours submitted a flight plan to the ATO Flight Operations Briefing Station, before the aircraft took off for the training flight.
"That (flight plan) will be reviewed by the investigators," Villanueva said. (EOB of Sun.Star Cebu)
(May 14, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
'Caloy' isolates Antique; N. Samar in state of calamity