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PAF trainer jet missing; S211 lost to Typhoon Lando?
Topic Started: Nov 26 2007, 04:31 PM (3,665 Views)
Lorenz_Mallari
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man...were short of aircraft and experienced pilots and this accident happens
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Tora^2
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Here's the latest update on the crash:

Quote:
 

(UPDATE 3) PAF jet with 2 on board missing over Kalayaan


By Joel Guinto, Tarra Quismundo
INQUIRER.net, Inquirer
Last updated 06:54pm (Mla time) 11/26/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- A Philippine Air Force (PAF) reconnaissance jet with two pilots failed to return Monday from a rescue mission in the South China Sea during raging tropical storms, officials said.

The missing jet was one of two S211 aircraft sent to the Philippine-held Kalayaan Islands group in the Spratlys to search for 26 Filipino crewmen whose fishing vessel capsized Thursday in stormy weather.

Onboard the aircraft were lead pilot Captain Gavino Mercado Jr. and co-pilot Captain Bonifacio Soriano III.

Two aircrafts took off from Antonio Bautista Airbase in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, at 8:45 a.m. Monday to search for the Filipino sailors, said PAF chief Lieutenant General Horacio Tolentino said.

But only one jet returned to the airbase by 12:45 p.m., he said.

"We don't know what happened. We don't know if it crashed. We lost contact ... it's missing," said Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Epifanio Panzo Jr.

Contact with the aircraft was last made at 10 a.m., before it went missing, Tolentino said in a phone interview.

"The clouds were not thick but it spanned a wide area. The two aircraft entered the clouds at 6,000 feet. The lead plane talked to the wingman to ask if they he could still see him (lead plane). The lead pilot decided to go up to 8,000 feet," Tolentino said.

"But at that point, when the lead plane tried to contact the wingman, there was no more answer," he said at a press conference late afternoon Monday.

Asked of the chances that the plane might have crashed, Tolentino said: "The probability is big of course."

Panzo said the aircraft’s fuel capacity would allow it to fly for a maximum of four hours. The S211, an Italian-made two-seater trainer jet plane acquired by the military in the early '90s, is a trainer converted into a combat aircraft.

Tolentino could not say if the bad weather brought by tropical storm "Lando" (international codename: Hagibis), which is approaching Palawan, could be a factor in the jet’s going missing.

He said the pilots may have experienced vertigo midflight, disorienting them while trying to pull the plane up.

"We can only speculate that they experienced vertigo because they were at an inadvertent altitude," said the official.

On PAF's request, a US military P-3 Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft, was dispatched from the Clark Air Base in Pampanga to scour an area spanning an 80-kilometer radius from where the S-211 had last made contact. A Philippine Navy ship was also called to help look for the plane and the missing pilots.

The PAF is counting on the emergency locator transmitters on the pilots' flight suits to help lead search and rescue workers to their location.

The S-211 also has a beacon that could help search crews find where it is.

Colonel William Ona, deputy chief of the Air Staff for Logistics, meanwhile said the missing aircraft took off airworthy and had a good maintenance record. The plane's October and November maintenance logs showed that the jet was well-maintained and flew without hitches in past missions.

The PAF's fleet of five S-211s (including the missing plane) have been used for a variety of missions including pilot training and aerial combat operations. With The Associated Press

Originally posted at 02:36 pm


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Tora^2
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WTF!???!!!

VERTIGO!??!!

I understand that flight instruments like the altimeter and the artificial horizon help pilots fly blind especially in foul weather conditions.

Is it just me or the Air Force is ashamed to cite possible instrument failure.
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israeli
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i am thinking of the same, Tora^2. are they (AFP and PAF) trying to cover up something? instrument failure? S-211 shot down by either the Chinese or the Vietnamese or even the Taiwanese? :wow: :demon:
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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adrian_yamato
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israeli
Nov 28 2007, 01:09 AM
i am thinking of the same, Tora^2. are they (AFP and PAF) trying to cover up something? instrument failure? S-211 shot down by either the Chinese or the Vietnamese or even the Taiwanese? :wow: :demon:

I'm also think the same, the plane has been shot down, possibly by the chinese, under the cover of typhoon, para hindi makahalata, I'm also think, the PAF hierchy is trying to cover-up what really happen there. :armyfrown:
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City Hunter
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Hindi ba may past reports na that the other claimants ng said place in question fired at our PAF planes? So hindi malayo nangyari ito. Medyo nakakapagtaka na walang idea what happened. Vertigo pa palusot when matagal na nangyayari iyon. Got word from my relatives in Palawan na matagal na may pinapalipad ang PAF uli doon. So hindi naman siguro mga newbie or madaling ma-succumb to such ang mga piloto natin.

Anyhow, sana mahanap sila na buhay at safe. At sana mali ang mga haka-haka natin on a cover-up.
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Tora^2
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Looks like the best hints we have of what really happened lie with the following pieces of evidence once uncovered:

-Wreckage of the said aircraft
-Their flight data recorders
-Testimony and injuries of the pilots, if found alive, or their remains

Meanwhile, some nations who are alleged to have shot down our "fighter" are joining in the search:

Quote:
 

Chinese, Vietnamese ships help in search for missing PAF jet


By Tarra Quismundo
Inquirer
Last updated 09:47pm (Mla time) 11/28/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- The search for the missing military jet over the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) opened an opportunity for cooperation among countries claiming the disputed territory in western Philippines, the Air Force chief said on Wednesday.

Lieutenant General Horacio Tolentino, commanding general of the Philippine Air Force (PAF), said Chinese and Vietnamese vessels offered to help look for a PAF S-211 trainer jet and its two pilots that disappeared over Philippine-held Kalayaan islands group in the Spratlys Monday morning. Both countries are among neighbors claiming ownership of the disputed islands west of Palawan.

“What's nice is claimant countries of KIG are cooperating for one purpose. I think it's a good sign for claimant countries for a predicament like this. Chinese and Vietnamese vessels are helping search for the aircraft,” Tolentino said when reached by phone from the PAF base in Palawan on Wednesday.

Tolentino said the Chinese and Vietnamese vessels, both civilian boats earlier sent to the area to help salvage a listing Vietnamese vessel in the territory, extended help for the search, already on its third day Wednesday.

He said the vessels volunteered to report to PAF any sighting of the lost plane or its parts and the missing pilots, Captain Gavino Mercado Jr. and Captain Bonifacio Soriano III.

The pilots took off as wingman to a lead S-211 on Monday morning to search for a Philippine vessel reported to have capsized off Kalayaan islands. The second plane lost contact with the lead pilots after it was directed to pull up to avoid heavy clouds while flying over the territory. The lead plane returned to base safely past noon that day.

PAF said the disappearance of the aircraft had nothing to do with turbulent weather over Luzon on Monday as the skies over Kalayaan were safe for flight that morning.

A United States maritime patrol ship, P-3 Orion, has been the primary search craft used to look for the missing plane since the jet lost contact with its tandem plane on Monda. It took off for its third search sortie on Wednesday from the Clark Air Base in Pampanga, where it has been staying since coming here to take part in the just concluded RP-US military exercise Talon Vision.

A Philippine Navy Islander plane has also been dispatched to do an aerial reconnaissance over Kalayaan to look for the PAF plane.

Sorties on Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon found no sign of the missing pilots and the aircraft. Still optimistic that the airmen survived, Tolentino said PAF was not fixing a timetable for the search and that it would continue until the missing pilots’ rescue or recovery.

He said the plane may have ditched in one of the remote islands and that the pilots just could not make contact with base.

PAF's four remaining S-211s remain grounded while the missing jet has yet to be found.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/brea...ticle_id=103664
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flipzi
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The accident tell us one vital thing;

WE DONT HAVE GOOD RADAR COVERAGE, since we cannot even pinpoint our own plane's last location before it went ... poof! :dunno:
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Zero wing
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i don't think so maybe its the other claimers of the island did the PAF find the data record yet ??? i am not saying but it is a possibility >????
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cyklonmetal
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hindi malayong physiological factors ang cause ng crash. number of reasons could cause vertigo; inadequate rest, non compliance of 12 hour bottle to throttle rule, colds/urti etc.

Quote:
 
Got word from my relatives in Palawan na matagal na may pinapalipad ang PAF uli doon. So hindi naman siguro mga newbie or madaling ma-succumb to such ang mga piloto natin.


it's not as easy as that, it's not just about experience or flying time in general it's more about just how much flying you have had in a specific time frame preceding the event. IIRC, S211 pilots were getting around 20-25 flying hours per quarter. barely enough to keep proficiency, of this, how many was dedicated to pure instrument flying? it's easy for an experienced pilot to drift when flying in soup, all it takes is momentary lapse in concentration. when going inside soup wingmen normally close in to maintain visual of the lead, if not possible he would break formation and rejoin once clear.

Quote:
 
I understand that flight instruments like the altimeter and the artificial horizon help pilots fly blind especially in foul weather conditions.


key word is help, in the end it is still the pilot who makes control inputs.

a possible scenario would be;
1. lead and wingman flying echelon, separation of maybe 1-2000 ft (for SAR??) at altitude of 6,000 ft.
2. weather closes in, wingman speeds up to close separation and maintain visual of lead.
3. wingman loses visual, cuts back throttle to avoid mid air, maneuvers ac as per preflight briefing in event of loss of contact with lead.
4. while maneuvering, inadvertently places aircraft inverted
5. pulls back to gain altitude, actually putting the ac in an unrecoverable dive.

or

4. while maneuvering, icing develops on wing leading edges
5. ac spins as a result of aerodynamic instability caused by wing icing.

yes, icing does happen in the philippines. it has happened before with F-8's and S-211's flying in the general vicinity of spratly's.

with either scenarios, 6,000 ft is barely enough room to initiate recovery. you have to remember that the very first instinct of a pilot in the event of an emergency is to recover the aircraft, not eject. if he has 15 seconds to decide eject, he will probably spend the first 12 seconds recovering the ac.

if the aircraft was inverted, flying at 350 kts pointing 45 deg down, rate of descent would be around 300 ft per second and would give him around 20 secs to recover assuming that he has broken cloud cover and see that he is earthbound. if the cloud ceiling was lower in that particular area, then he would have less time. while he could have radioed his position to lead he didn't, i'm betting he didn't have the luxury of time to read distance and bearing which would have given rescuers a more specific area. If he was spinning, it would have been impossible to get a readout.




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