World

Flight Recorder Recovered In Philippines

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 18, 2000 / 9:39 PM EDT / CBS

Investigators at the scene of Wednesday's Philippines Airlines crash have recovered the flight recorder of the Boeing 737-200 jet.

All 131 people aboard Flight 541 from Manila were killed when the jet hit the top of a coconut tree and lost a wing. Eyewitnesses in the village say the plane then roared its engines and tried to climb, but instead fell to earth and exploded.

Transcripts from what is the Philippines' worst aviation disaster indicate that air traffic controllers tried at least twice to hurry another plane off the runway, so Flight 541 could land. Flight 541's pilot reported that the other plane remained on the runway so he circled and tried to land from the opposite direction.

The jet then slammed into a coconut grove on Samal Island, near Davao City some 620 miles southeast of Manila, at about 7 a.m. local time. Grieving relatives have gathered at a nearby military base where 89 bags of body parts have been taken. So far, just 17 bodies have been identified.

Chronology

Click here for a timeline of major airline crashes in recent history.

"The whole family was on that plane," said Patrick Mallari, standing in a drizzle at a military camp in Davao where soldiers lined up 23 body bags.

Mallari lost his sister, Luisa Hall; her husband, Martin, and the couple's two daughters. The family was arriving to celebrate her mother's birthday, a brother's wedding, and the baptism of her 3-month-old daughter on Easter.

"All (events) have been canceled," Mallari said.

Elnora Marciano said her sister, Evelyn de la Fuente, took the plane with her husband and three of her four children for a family reunion.

"She left a son to watch the house," Marciano said.

Ivy Hill, a 27-year-old nurse who went to the airport to pick up her longtime boyfriend, Anil Diswani, saw the plane circle the airport and disappear.

Air Philippines Crash Site

"He asked what wanted for a present," Hill said. "I told him just come home safely."

Airport officials said skies were foggy at the time othe crash. According to the tower transcript, as the pilot approached the airport, he reported that visibility was only three miles - considered marginal for visual landings, according to Philippine aviation officials.

The Davao airport does not have full equipment for instrument landings. Visibility was reportedly worse over Samal island, 610 miles southeast of Manila.

Air Philippines, the country's second-largest airline, began operations in 1996 and is one of a number of new airlines created after the industry was deregulated several years ago.

Several of the new airlines use older planes and have been dogged with safety and maintenance problems. Air Philippines' operating permit was temporarily suspended in 1998 because of lapses in safety and maintenance.