This was the sixth air mishap to occur in a span of less than a month, starting with the tragic crash of an Air Force helicopter that killed the country’s renowned seismologist, Raymundo Punongbayan, and eight other people in Nueva Ecija last April 28.
1Lt. Robert Manlongat Jr., instructor and pilot of the converted T-41D Cessna navigation training plane, and 1Lts. Randy Gabriel and Aristotle Anguluan Jr., both pilot trainees, died instantaneously when their four-seater plane slammed into a ravine in a residential area in Barangay Atok Trail here.
The aircraft was on a group flight with six other T-41Ds bound for their base at the PAF flying school at Fernando Air Base in Lipa City in Batangas, the PAF said in a statement.
The third trainee, 1Lt. Dennis Abaygar, died soon after being brought to a hospital by rescuers.
A PAF officer who refused to be identified pending clearance from higher headquarters said the trainees were supposed to graduate from a two-year combat pilot course this month.
Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Restituto Padilla said the airplane had taken off for cross-navigational training when the pilot radioed that he had encountered mechanical trouble and was attempting an emergency landing.
"It had just taken off from the airport. They were there for navigation training," Padilla said. "There were four of them, three students and the instructor."
The pilot, however, could not find a flat area to land, and the aircraft slammed into a ravine, also striking an electrical wire, Padilla said.
Office of Civil Defense-Cordillera director Vicente Tomazar also said the plane could have hit a high-tension wire at the residential area.
Tomazar said the four pilots aboard the trainer plane took off from Loakan airport at about 11:30 a.m.
PAF commanding general, Lt. Gen. Jose Reyes dispatched a Bell helicopter from the 505th Search and Rescue Group upon learning of the incident.
The T41-D Cessna plane is among those being used by the Air Education and Training Command at the PAF Training School in Lipa City. For almost a week now, at least 10 similar trainer planes have taken off at the Loakan airport with student pilots.
Tomazar said the PAF is the body primarily tasked to probe the cause of the incident.
In a statement, the PAF Public Information Office said the Air Force’s remaining 18 T-41D aircraft, or military Cessna R172s, had been ordered grounded pending the investigation.
The incident follows a string of air accidents in recent weeks.
The Baguio City crash became the seventh air tragedy this year with a total death toll of 21.
On Monday, an American pilot, his compatriot and a Filipino woman escaped unhurt after their small plane made an emergency landing in a sugar cane field south of Manila.
Last month, President Arroyo grounded the Air Force’s entire fleet of UH1H helicopters after a crash killed nine people, one of them Punongbayan, former director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
"Then stones hit my roof," Pidlaoan said.
"We are lucky," he said in Filipino, "that the plane did not crash through the houses."
The plane plunged between the houses of Pidlaoan and that of Rey Douglas Saydoen, 42.
Saydoen’s wife said they also heard a loud noise and later found out that the ill-fated aircraft was lying on a small hill just beside their house.
Padilla said Manlongat was a member of the Philippine Military Academy Class 2001 while the three other fatalities were also fresh PMA graduates.
It was learned that the training on flying T-41Ds is the primary instruction phase upon entering the PAF Flying School. Piloting SF-260s or Marchettis comes next under the basic training stage. Graduation follows once the course using Marchettis is completed.
The PAF has an average of 30 students a year.
Maj. Horacio dela Peña of the PAF-PIO said the grounding of the T-41Ds would disrupt the training of the current batch. — With reports from Rainier Allan Ronda, Jaime Laude, AFP