ANYONE watching local TV Sunday night, March 29, 2020, must have seen it.
Regular programming was suddenly interrupted by breaking news: a plane about to take off from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the capital suddenly caught fire, killing all eight passengers.
The aircraft turned out to be a West Wind 24 operated by Lionair Inc. It was on a medical evacuation mission to Haneda, Japan.
According to a news report, those killed were the pilot, Capt. Mario Medina Jr., co-pilots Ren Edward Ungson and Melvin de Castro, Dr. Cenover Nicandro Bautista II, flight medic Edmark Jael, nurse Conrado Tomeldan Jr., Canadian patient John Richard Hurst and his assistant Marilyn Vergara de Jesus, who holds an American passport.
AviationUpdatesPH tweeted Sunday night that the aircraft was chartered by the Department of Health (DOH) to ferry essential medical supplies across the country.
Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines Deputy Director Don Mendoza said the same plane had been used to ferry medical supplies to Iloilo on Saturday, March 28.
All the other news on the incident made no mention of the plane being chartered by the health department.
One report said airport authorities were tight-lipped about why the medical evacuation was taking place.
My heart goes out to the families and friends of the victims, but I couldn’t get these nagging questions out of my head as I watched the news conference of Transportation General Manager Ed Monreal Sunday night.
Mind you, he did confirm that the plane was on a medical evacuation mission to Japan. But he didn’t say what the patient’s condition was.
Again, Monreal probably didn’t have all the details yet because the incident had just happened. I understand that. Also, he is a transportation official, not a health official. But I automatically assumed that it had something to do with the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Am I way off mark here?
Well, I shouldn’t dwell so much on assumptions so I won’t. It wouldn’t be fair to the victims’ families and friends, anyway. But I think the DOH should issue a statement on this matter. The agency doesn’t want everybody to think that it was, once again, dishing out special treatment.
Yet, of all the questions during the press conference, one caught my attention and left me scratching my head.
One reporter asked, “Aside from the two foreign nationals (on board), what was the nationality of the other passengers?”
Ha?