Sun Star Manila September 01, 2008
Search for missing C-130 plane continues
By Carlo P. Mallo
DAVAO CITY -- Search and retrieval operations of Task Force C-130 Hercules failed to locate the fuselage of ill-fated C-130 plane a week after it plummeted into the depths Davao Gulf, Monday last week.
Search teams have so far recovered bits and pieces of bodies, not even enough to make up nine persons. There has been no whole body found, so far.
On Saturday, the task force reported that the remains of the plane have already been located in a depth of 600 feet.
A Sonar and an echo sound equipment, both from the private sector, is being used by TF C-130 in the search and retrieval operations.
The echo sound equipment lent by fishing magnate Marfin Tan of General Santos was said to have located an area that has a suspicious outcrop from the bottom around 180 feet underwater.
A check with a fish finder sonar, however, showed that the bottom in that specific area off Bucana was in fact more than 400 feet, casting doubt on an earlier assumption that there may be a piece of the wreckage in the area.
A plan to send volunteer divers and Navy Seals to check out the sight Sunday morning was also aborted as 400 feet is a depth for trained tech divers using a special mix of oxygen, nitrogen and helium unlike the regular compressed or enhanced air mix of oxygen and nitrogen. Had it been 180 feet, then it could have been possible to check out using regular compressed air and dive training.
The planned dive thus became another sonar sweep of the area, this time guided by the witness account of a tugboat operator who said he was heading toward Talikud Island to fetch a vessel when the plane plunged to his right, the Bucana area.
Detected was a suspicious "something" embedded between what looked like the original bottom and the silt surface underwater that in the fish finder sonar was illustrated as several big fishes buried in silt. The TF C-130 will again check the area on Monday.
The absence of more body parts, if not more bodies, have in fact led to the speculation that the fuselage of the plane is still intact and that the parts so far recovered were those of the pilot and co-pilot, them being the ones who would have faced the full impact of the crash if the plane dives nose down.
The C-130 plane, it was said, also has lots of lifejackets. But not one lifejacket has been recovered so far.
The TF C-130 is putting much hope for the plane wreckage to be accurately pinpointed with the arrival of the US Navy ship John McDonnell that was sent by the US government to help in the retrieval operations of the ill-fated aircraft.
From the information released by the Naval Forces of Eastern Mindanao, USNS John McDonnell was given clearance to enter the Philippine territorial waters from August 28 to September 2.
USNS McDonnel or T-AGS 51 is a 208-foot long oceanographic survey ship, one of seven in the US Navy. It is part of the 29 ships in the US Military Sealift Command's Special Mission Ships Program.
The John McDonnell class of survey ships carries 34-foot survey launches for data collection in coastal regions with depths between 10m and 600m (32.78 feet and 1,967 feet) and in deep water to 4,000m (13,114.75 feet). A small diesel is used for propulsion at towing speeds of up to 6 knots. Simrad high-frequency active hull-mounted and side scan sonars are also carried.
McDonnel is one of two oceanographic ships surveying the sea bottom to gather hydrographic data "charting three-fourth of the world's coastlines," an entry about the ship in GlobalSecurity.org reads. The other ship is USNS Littelhales.
The data being gathered by these two ships helps navigators to find their way both along well-traveled and not-so-familiar shipping routes.
Designed to study the world's oceans, the sonar systems on these survey ships allow it to "continuously chart a broad strip of ocean floor."
There is a need for the retrieval of major parts of the wreckage that lies in deep water, to determine the cause of the crash.
Nine of the 11 personnel onboard the aircraft are from the PAF, including two of its top pilots, while the other two personnel on board were Scout Rangers of the Philippine Army.
The plane left Davao International Airport en route to Iloilo City when it crashed.
© Copyright 2008, Sun Star Publishing, Inc.
