"Wala namang problema yung engine (The engine had no problem)," said Maj. Augusto de la Peña, deputy chief of the Air Force public information office.
De la Peña said Air Force probers examined the engine of the T-41D, a trainer aircraft used by the Air Force flying school in the Fernando Air Base in Lipa City, Batangas, and found it to be in running condition.
With this finding, he said they could now eliminate mechanical malfunction or indequate maintenance as a probable cause of the crash, which killed the trainer-pilot and three student-pilots.
The ill-fated aircraft, part of eight other T-41Ds on a cross-navigational training flight, crashed minutes after it took off from Baguio’s Loakan airport.
The crash was the second involving Air Force aircraft in less than a month. Last April 28, an UH-IH chopper plunged to earth in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija, killing nine people, including Raymundo Punongbayan, former director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
The chopper crash was blamed on bad weather "aggravated by the pilot’s unfamiliarity with the terrain."