No proof of sabotage in Double Six crash, says declassified report
Published on: Wednesday, April 12, 2023
By: FMT
.jpg "No proof of sabotage in Double Six crash, says declassified report")
The 1976 plane crash claimed the lives of then-Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens and 10 others.
PETALING JAYA: There was no evidence that sabotage, fire or an explosion had caused the tragic 1976 plane crash that claimed the lives of then Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens and 10 others, according to the declassified report on the crash.
The report said the aircraft had been maintained according to the schedule, and that it was loaded within the set weight limit.
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However, it said the plane’s “centre of gravity position was well outside the approved aft (towards the stern) limit”.
“The probable cause of the accident was due to a centre of gravity position well outside the aft limit, which caused the control column to run out of forward range as the nose pitched up when the flaps passed through 25 degrees on the final approach to land.”
It also said it was clear that operating procedures carried out by the company’s pilots were not of a professional standard.
“There are specific requirements laid down by the law that load sheets must be prepared before each public transport flight and a copy (to be) left on the ground. This was not carried out on this occasion.
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“A VIP flight, according to the company’s operations manual, requires that an IFR (instrument flight rules) flight plan be filed; this again was not done,” it said.
The report said the company should have a monitoring system to ensure that its procedures were adhered to, adding that one example was the monitoring of the flight crew’s rest period.
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It said the pilot of the plane had already exceeded the set duty time of 10 hours by 67 minutes when the incident occurred, and pointed out that the company’s operations manual stated that a flight crew member’s duty period started from two hours before departure to one hour after flight.
“On the day of the accident, the pilot had flown successfully from Labuan to Kota Kinabalu twice, starting the first trip at 0635 hours local time.
“In order to take off at 0635 hours, he must have been up by 0530 hours at the very latest. The amount of sleep that night could not be determined accurately, but he did have to get up some time early in the morning to let in his two friends who were staying with him at a local hotel.
“At the time of the accident, he had been up for approximately 10 hours.”
The report said it was also possible that the pilot was unwell, as he had complained of feeling under the weather before leaving on the last flight to Labuan at 1310 hours.
“Had (the flight crew’s rest period) been recorded properly by the company, this pilot would not have been required to carry out the last flight from Labuan to Kota Kinabalu,” it said.
The report also concluded that there were no signs of any pre-crash defect or malfunction on the aircraft or its engines, and considered that the plane’s communication equipment had no bearing on the incident.
While the plane’s visual flight rules (VFR) flight plan was filed, the report said the passenger manifest was not completed, fuel load figures were not entered into the technical log, and the log’s defects section was not cleared in line with recommended practice.
The ill-fated flight had left Labuan at 3.09pm.
The report was jointly prepared by the civil aviation department, the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Australian transport department.
In the incident on June 6, 1976, Fuad, who had been sworn in as chief minister just 53 days earlier, died along with 10 others, including state ministers, when the GAF Nomad aircraft they were in crashed in Sembulan, Kota Kinabalu.
The others who died included state ministers Salleh Sulong, Chong Thien Vun and Peter Mojuntin.
Following the incident, the Australian GAF Nomad manufacturer and the Australian transport department launched an investigation to prove that the crash was not due to mechanical issues.
The investigation was completed some four months later, but the full report was not made public. Instead, it was classified under the Official Secrets Act.
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