Captain Bahinting not found in pilot seat on the crashed plane

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 CEBU CITY—Margarita Bahinting, the wife of Captain Jessup Bahinting, chairman and executive officer of Aviatour Air, expressed dismay at the reports that her husband was found on the right side of the cockpit, saying this was erroneous.

She said that her husband was on the left side of the plane, on the seat of the main pilot. She said the media reports could be misconstrued that Bahinting had allowed the student pilot, Kshitiz Chand, 21, to handle the plane.

Chand’s body was found floating near the crash site Thursday morning.

The bodies of the two pilots of the light plane that crashed off Masbate with Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo were flown to Cebu on Thursday.

The body of Bahinting, 61, was accompanied by his daughter Sarah Lynn on board a Beechcraft RPC 9980 plane, which landed at the Mactan Cebu International Airport at 8:01 a.m.

At 3:03 p.m., Cessna 182 RPC 2214 arrived with the body of Bahinting’s Nepali co-pilot, Chand.

Bahinting and Chand piloted the Piper Seneca plane that was supposed to bring Robredo from Cebu to Naga City in Camarines Sur. But the plane reportedly experienced engine trouble and was trying to make an emergency landing at the Masbate Airport when it crashed into the sea.

Bahinting’s body was retrieved from the right side of the cockpit on Wednesday, according to media reports. Sarah identified her father through his Fossil watch and ring.

Emotional

Bahinting’s friends and the students of Bahinting’s Aviatour Flight School formed a line when the small plane arrived. They were all emotional as Bahinting’s wife cried when the body bag containing the remains of her husband was pulled out of the plane, said former Cebu City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem.

Bahinting’s body was taken to St. Peter Funeral Homes on New Imus street where the wake would be held until Sunday noon. It will be transferred to Ginatilan town, about 135 km southwest of Cebu City, for burial on Monday, said Sarah Lynn.

Chand’s father, Tek Bahadur Chand, and uncle Damand Chand arrived in Cebu at 3:17 p.m. on board another plane. Chand’s body was expected to be flown to Nepal.

Capt. Bahinting, Robredo's pilot transferred to Cebu

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CEBU CITY, Philippines—The body of Capt. Jessup Bahinting, one of two pilots of the plane that crashed into the sea  off Masbate last Saturday, claiming their lives as well as that of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo’s, arrived in Cebu Thursday morning aboard a small plane.

The Beechcraft RTC 9980 plane owned by Cheyn Air touched down at the general aviation terminal of the airport at 8:01 a.m., said Mary Ann Dimabayao, public affairs manager of the Mactan Cebu International Airport.

Bahinting’s wife Margarita, who could not hide her grief, former Cebu City Councilor Jack Jakosalem, other friends and the pilots and staff of the Aviatour Air fetched the pilot’s body and took it immediately to the St. Peter Funeral Homes in Imus, Cebu City.

The Cebu City government is planning to hold a flower drop and a fly-by of several light planes to honor Bahinting, who was instrumental in transporting an anti-venom vaccine from Camaguin to Cebu City last week for a zookeeper who was bitten by cobra.

The pilot’s widow said earlier that a wake will be held at St Peter for three days. The body will then be taken to Ginatilan, where Bahinting will be interred after a two-day wake.

Robredo plane avoided crashing into populous village— Abrazado (survivor)

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 MASBATE CITY—It was a toss-up between hitting a population center and the sea with the crippled aircraft approaching the Masbate Airport.

Capt. Jessup Bahinting decided to head for the water instead, sparing casualties on the ground but losing instead Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, his copilot and his own life as well, in the tragic crash of the twin-engine Piper Seneca at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Senior Insp. June Paolo Abrazado, the only survivor, recounted the harrowing moments before the aircraft fell off Masbate City in a three-page statement in Filipino, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer Tuesday.

Robredo’s body was retrieved from the sea on Tuesday morning. Bahinting and his Nepalese student copilot Kshitiz Chand’s bodies have yet to be retrieved from the hull of the plane.

Abrazado, Robredo’s police aide who clambered out of the aircraft before it sank and was rescued later by fishermen, said that the pilot was looking for the runway to make an emergency landing while the plane, which already lost its right engine, was flying very low over the city.

“There’s the runway! There’s the runway!” Abrazado quoted Bahinting exclaiming as they approached the airport.

But the aircraft missed the runway, glided to the left and headed toward the residential area of Barangay (village) Ibingay, he said. It seemed to him that Bahinting avoided crashing into Ibingay, one of the most populous villages of the city.

Like bomb explosion

As the plane banked to the right, sparing the village, it wobbled, “nosed up and nosed down,” and finally plunged into the sea, he said.

“The sound of the crash was indescribable. I can’t explain it. But it was like the explosion of a bomb,” he said. “My initial reaction was to hug Secretary Robredo,” he said.

Abrazado said he lost consciousness after that.

“When I regained consciousness, seawater was already rushing into the plane and the right side of the plane appeared to have disintegrated,” he said.

“But the door of the plane remained locked by a latch. There was a piece of wood that apparently pierced the glass pane of the plane. And the water kept rushing in,” he said.

Nowhere in sight

Abrazado said he looked around but could not see Robredo.

“We were seated beside each other. I did not know if it was me or he who got displaced. I just reached for my seatbelt because seawater was flooding the inside of the plane. I saw light coming in and I tried to surface. I did not know which part of the plane the light was coming from. I was rattled. I was losing my mind. I tried many times to unfasten my seatbelt but it seemed I could not even move my hands. When I unbuckled it, I squeezed myself out from the plane. I had drank seawater mixed with gasoline and I became dizzy.

As he floated away, he saw the plane bobbing up, with its tail the only visible part above the water. The tail, he said, was perpendicular to the surface.

“Then I could not move my hands again. I was still wearing my shoes and pants. I said to myself that I would die because I could not even move my arms. I assumed that my arms were broken,” he said.

Then he saw his bag floating. “I summoned all the physical strength I could to reach for the bag. My face was aching. My body was failing me. I grabbed the bag and it kept me afloat long enough  until a fisherman  came to rescue me.”

Abrazado said for about 15 minutes he was shouting and calling for help while the bag he was holding on for dear life was also slowly sinking.

“When I was rescued by a fisherman, I looked back at the plane. I saw no one from the plane was following me. I could only see what looked like debris,” he said.

He said he told the fisherman to rush him to the  Masbate police office. But the fisherman told him that a rescue team was waiting.

Abrazado’s nose was bleeding by then.

Danger signs

Before the crash, Abrazado had sensed there were problems with the plane.

“While we were still up in the air, the display panel that also displayed a directional map kept on flashing: ‘aviation expires 18 or November 28 2010.’ I can see from the panel a distance notification that said 20 to 26 miles. I don’t know what the expiration message meant. I wanted to inform the secretary about it but I did not want him to worry. I just made the secretary laugh by saying that there were many cases when a plane was flying with only one engine functioning,” he said.

“We were relieved when we saw the runway. Then when we were about to relax,  we began to be aware of the problem,” he said.

The aide said the plane began to swoop nose down when the pilot glided it to the right. “It was then that the pilot lost control of the plane.

“I wondered why the pilot chose to land in Masbate when he said we were returning to Cebu. In fact, I was able to reserve a plane ticket from Cebu to Manila.”

‘Check engine’ warning

Abrazado said when the group took off from Cebu, Robredo was rushing to go home because the Naga Airport would not allow a plane to land if they left Cebu at 2 p.m. They would be diverted to Legazpi City.

“Secretary Robredo was able to talk to the one in charge of the Naga Airport tower, and he got  a go signal,” he said.  “But we still took off at 3 p.m.”

Abrazado said he noticed that the plane looked old but he said the pilot told them that it was in good condition.

“I noticed that the copilot looked like a trainee and that he was a foreigner,” he said.

“After we took off from Cebu and while we were in the air, the display panel suddenly blinked and displayed: ‘Check engine,’” he said.

“The pilot told us that there was a problem and they could not proceed to Naga. Then Secretary Robredo told the pilot to just return to Cebu.”

“I felt the plane turn and I started coordinating with our staff in Cebu and asked them to book a Cebu-Manila ticket,” he said. “Secretary Robredo was relieved that we were returning to Cebu but we noticed that the flight was taking longer than expected.”

Then, Abrazado said, the right engine suddenly shut down and he and Robredo got worried.

Still, the plane was running well, he said, although the pilots were trying to restart the engine that malfunctioned. The copilot even had a very relaxed demeanor when he turned to them at the back, he said.

“We asked the pilot if we were nearing Cebu and we were informed that we would be making an emergency landing in Masbate Airport instead,” Abrazado said.

He said he tried to coordinate with the Legazpi Airport staff to provide a chopper as Robredo had an urgent engagement in Naga.

“While I was doing that, the plane was flying very close to the surface of the sea and I thought the plane was just making a final approach to the runway. I said to myself, we can survive this. I said even when the plane makes a water landing, I can manage to bail out and save my boss,” he said.

Abrazado failed to do that. He was knocked out when the plane crashed into the water and Robredo disappeared from his sight when he regained his senses.

Robredo:"I'm in a hurry.. I have a flight to catch

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 CONSOLACION, Cebu - ''I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry... I have a flight to catch''.

These were the last words of Secretary Jesse Robredo to reporters who tried to interview him at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) just hours before the plane he boarded the private plane for Naga City.

Organizers of the Community Investigative Support (CIS) National Summit thought the secretary could not make it to the event because they knew he had a 3 p.m. Cebu Pacific flight to catch.

But he made it to the event, looking stressed and in a hurry, to read the message of President Benigno S. Aquino III.

Local reporters tried to corner Robredo after his speech but the secretary, who was in a rush to leave for his flight.

''He looked so stressed and was in such a hurry,'' said local reporter Ryan Christopher Sorote.

A source in the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Robredo was in a rush because his youngest daughter, Jilian, had won a swimming competition in the Palarong Panglunsod. ''He wanted to make it was eager to make it to the awarding ceremony of his daughter,'' the source said.

Every weekend, without fail, he flies home to his family in Naga City where he was once mayor, the source said.

''Because he is so busy, sometimes he would even take the last flight out on Friday just to be with his family in Naga,'' he said. ''But he always goes home to them.''

Robredo spent his Saturday in Cebu, meeting local officials and addressing the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Community Investigative Support national summit.

Hours before his plane crashed into the waters off Masbate, Robredo has even urged LGUs to ensure disaster and rescue preparedness in their respective communities to minimize the loss of lives during calamities, unsuspicious of the incident he was about to face.

And when a town mayor asked if they could meet again in the evening to discuss some concerns, Robredo just smiled and replied ''Let's meet some other time''.

Consolacion town Mayor Teresa Alegado, who was one of those who had a conversation with Robredo had taken notice of the warm weather of Cebu.

''Mabuti at mainit dito sa Cebu, sa Manila laging umuulan,'' Alegado quoted Robredo as saying.

Robredo was in Consolacion Saturday morning for the ground breaking of the Philippine Police Safety College.

''I asked him if we could meet again in the evening to discuss some concerns but he just said 'maybe some other time','' said Alegado.

Robredo and his aide Senior Insp. Jun Abrazado were aboard the Piper Seneca owned and piloted by Capt. Jessup Bahinting of the Aviatour Flight School and his Nepalese copilot Kshitiz Chand.

It was Aviatour's second crash in five months as one of its Cessna aircraft crashed into coconut trees near the airport in Camiguin last March 4, 2012.

A Norwegian national and the pilot were killed, while the Norwegian's husband, their three-year-old child and an Indonesian student pilot were injured.

But Aviatour's owner, Bahinting, is a veteran pilot, said Cebu City Traffic Chief Sylvan Jakosalem, a close friend of the missing pilot.

Aviatour conducts aerial tours and does charter flights to Tagbilaran, Dipolog, Tacloban, Bantayan, Camotes, Siargao, Guian, Camiguin, Caticlan, and Masbate. It also conducts pilot training courses.

Just five days ago, Bahinting was involved in a heroic flight that would have earned him the special Lifesaver Award from the City City government, said Jakosalem.

A zoo keeper was bitten by a Philippine King Cobra and Cebu City does not have anti-venom that would keep the victim alive. Jakosalem said he learned that Camiguin has anti-venom but it will take time to be shipped to Cebu.

Jakosalem said he contacted Bahinting and the veteran pilot, despite the bad weather, sent one of his Cessna planes and a Nigerian pilot to Camiguin to pick up vials of anti-venom that eventually saved the zookeeper's life.