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FOR a profound sentimental reason, ex-RMAF pilot Capt Pui Seng Tai sought to meet up with some 32 Sabahan students and teacher who erupted in applause for saving them from a near disaster after pulling off a successful emergency landing in interior Keningau 42 years ago.

Pui is an ex-Flight Captain and Flight Commander in the Royal Malaysian Airforce (RMAF) which operated a fleet of Caribou DHC4, known for its exceptional short take-off and landing (STOL) capability, allowing it to operate from rough, unimproved airstrips in forward battle areas, plus its ability to carry a substantial payload, making it a valuable asset for the RMAF in tactical airlift missions, and no less its rugged ability to handle demanding conditions.

Captain Pui tells this writer he can never forget a “harrowing event’ while serving in Sabah between 1982-3 when a complete electrical failure struck while flying 32 students cum teacher to KK from Tawau.

32 students + teacher saved – where are you? 

“Most pilots have a fair share of heart pounding and terrifying events,” Pui confesses in an article published in a recent Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans (Macva) Memoirs, where he singled out this incident in Sabah as one of “a few memorable, scary and horrifying flights during the tenure of my service with the RMAF as a military pilot with the Caribou workhorse.” 

This is why he says he is particularly keen to get connected with the 32 students and their teacher who were supposed to be flown from Tawau to Kota Kinabalu when suddenly both generators failed, shutting down the plane’s Artificial Horizon and engine instruments, forcing a Mayday search in blinding clouds for an emergency landing at the nearest airstrip available and by a pure stroke of luck, Keningau grass airstrip came into sight, and Pui knew he must make it in one single attempt or else, which he did, after ‘sweating profusely’ out of sheer terror!

“A burst of applause erupted from the 32 students cum teacher in the cabin,” Pui remembers.

Looking back, Pui believes the unthinkable could have happened, if not because his training and experience combined with the Caribou DHC4’s rugged capabilities.   

Start a Chat Group, meet later 

“So where are you, the 32 students and their teacher-in-charge, I am keen to get in in touch through first a chat group (through his handphone 0192692779) and maybe arrange a reunion later?” Captain Pui contacted Daily Express to publish his interest.   

Actually, this writer had interviewed Pui in Oct 2023 when he was in KK with members of the Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans Association to honour the WW2 Force 136 Officer 1st Lieutenant, the late Datuk Chin Phui Kong, and published his story on Oct 29, 2023, which I repeat here verbatim: 

‘Disaster-spelling’ Tawau-KK flight report in DE Oct 2023 

“Of course it is a great honour to finally meet up with (Oct 2023) the last survivor of Force 136 (the late Chin Phui Kong who passed away 20 Jan 2024 at 100) after planning for his event for more than one year,” beamed ex Royal Malaysian Airforce pilot, Captain Pui Seng Tai.

“I served in the Royal Malaysia Air Force for 12 years as a pilot, I had a chance to serve in Sabah for two years from 1981 to 1983,” he recalled.

“I was flying the Caribou – a slow old-looking propeller aircraft but very faithful throughout my service in the airforce,” he said.

“A lot of things happened during my two-year tour in Sabah but what I remember most was the day when I was flying students from Tawau to KK when a total electrical failure when both generators konked out mid-flight.

“That was serious, scary and very critical that jeopardised the entire flight operations, entering clouds in flight would spell disaster to the operation of the aircraft,” he recalled the sobering total electrical failure, including a flattening of the standby battery.  

Flying into the clouds meant ‘the end’ 

“That meant I could not fly into the clouds, I had no reference, no instruments working, so I flew like driving a car looking outside, I could not get into the clouds because the moment I go into the clouds, that would be the end, I would have lost my visuals, lost my reference, that was in 1983,” he remembered.

Asked how did he fly out of a potential disaster?

“We had to use a lot of manual  lowering of the flaps, under carriage, all executed manually, using the hand pump, all manual, and instead of heading for destination, KK, we were forced to divert to the Keningau rural airstrip for an emergency landing in the Keningau rural airstrip, thus, escaping the worst out on many big incidents, as we used to fly a lot to places like Kudat, Kuala Penyu, Sapulut, all the short air strips, and became experts in short take-offs and landings,” Captain Pui reflected. 

Another incident he cannot forget was 1982 big floods here in Sabah “when the whole of interior looked like an ocean”.

“We did a lot of operations like transporting food, petrol to the helicopters and so on,” Pui recalled the dramatic episodes in the hey days of his Sabah stints.       

That’s Special Report published in the Oct 29, 2023 edition of the Daily Express. 

Latest Macva Memoir: A tale of total electrical failure! 

In the recent Malaysian Armed Forces Chinese Veterans Association (Macva) Memoirs, Pui recalls the incident in details, as follows: 

“Flight Seladang SEL 644A was a special task to ferry exchange students on an excursion for a study trip from Tawau to Kota Kinabalu,” Pui said. 

“Whilst on the Tawau to Kota Kinabalu flight sector a technical fault triggered off a scary and horrifying situation.

“While on the enroute climb-out after taking off from Tawau Airport heading to Kota Kinabalu at noon time, one of the generators from the starboard engine became unserviceable.

“The effort to reset the generator failed and we have to content with a single generator to cater for all the operational electrical needs of the entire aircraft.

“This constituted a partial loss of electrical power which required us to share the electrical load output from the good generator.

“To prevent and safeguard the good generator from overloading and further failure, we have to shed some of the unimportant instruments and gadgets in order to reduce the electrical power usage.”

All attempts to reignite electrical power failed

“Incredibly and against the law of averages, after we have successfully load shared the electrical power with the good generator for hardly 15 to 20 minutes the good generator also failed!”  

“Despite the proper diagnosis and rectification action taken as per the SOP and the Flight Manual, we failed to resuscitate and restore power from both the generators.” “Thus this inevitably led us to fall back on the standby battery as a last resort.” 

“The standby battery is supposed to last for 30 mins for emergency use for immediate landings at the nearest airport but however it did not perform too.” 

“Within a few minutes the standby battery flattened out resulting in a Total Electrical Failure situation.”  

“That was serious, scary and very critical as the entire flight operations was then in jeopardy.”

“With the total loss of electrical power, the equipment and instruments indicating the status or condition of the engine and flight condition was no longer displayed.”   

“We were blindsided totally as we were not in the know on their actual real time performance parameters at all.”  

“Beside there were implications on the effect of operation of other equipment necessary for safe flight and  for landings like the operation of the landing gears, flaps etc.”

The most crucial loss – Artificial Horizon 

“The most crucial loss was the electrically driven Artificial Horizon (AH) used for flight attitude references.”  

“Without the AH the aircraft cannot be operated in Instrument Meteorological Condition (IMC) and would have to be flown visually.”   

“Entering clouds in flight would spell disaster to the operation of the aircraft as we would not know whether we were right side up or banking.”  

“Further to that, if there were any engine failure or fire, we would be unable to feather the propellers (to stop the propeller from wind milling and causing a lot drag) and this would be very detrimental to the flight path (attitude and altitude).  

“The en route flight condition was far from ideal with low level cloud bases along the route impeding our navigation.”  

Flying by visual – minimum 1 mile visibility 

“For flying by visual flight rules we need to have a minimum of 1 nautical mile visibility, be 500ft clear of clouds and be in sight of the ground and horizon at all times.

“The highest terrain nearby is Mount Kinabalu (13,435ft or 4095,2m – highest mountain in Malaysia between Himalayan and New Guinea)  and the Crocker Range (just before descending to Kota Kinabalu airport en route from Tawau).

“The ordeal now was to overcome the shortcomings and to bring the aircraft down safely to the nearest diversion airfield.

“The basic flying is now based on feel and basic instinct and the visual references from familiar features on the terrain and the horizon.

“Under the circumstances, the magnetic standby compass provided us with the general direction to stay on course while the position of the sun helped to give us references and direction.

“To maintain a safe flight we had to have to maintain visual and be in sight with the ground and the horizon at all time.”  

Briefing teacher on ‘critical situations’

 “As the widespread afternoon clouds kept on rising higher and higher due to convection, we had to keep climbing as well with the clouds in order to maintain visual at all times.

“We fear that if we were to enter clouds we will be disoriented due to the lack of the Artificial Horizon.

“The teacher in charge of the 32 students on board was briefed of the critical situations and to be prepared for the eventuality of an emergency landing.

“The situation gave me no choice but to steer away from the high ground and avoid cloudy conditions towards the coastal areas.”  

Apprehensive & sweating profusely   

“In this particular scenario, I must confess that I was a little bit apprehensive and sweated profusely as I realised that the situation and condition can get out of my control.

“I was rather relieved when we spotted the small grass landing strip at Sepulut out of a small opening in the patch of clouds.

“This strip is adequate for our normal STOL operations and we had made landings there before. It was a great temptation to attempt a landing.

“However, my common sense, airmanship and wisdom prevailed.  

“It is not worth the risks as it may not be suitable taking into account the limitations arising from the total electrical failure affecting the proper landing performance.”  

“I assessed that the risk outweighs the advantages as we were not in a situation which required an immediate emergency landing and pushed on to the alternative.”  

Clear sight of Keningau airstrip saved the day 

“As we moved on in the same general direction towards the coastal area, we managed to spot Keningau grass airstrip which we were used to do our STOL short field training and operations.

“The cloudy situation opened up and shortly we had a clear view of the entire airstrip.

“Though relieved, our job was not completed yet.

“The situation called for a lot of coordination and good team work to complete a safe landing.

“This included manual landing gear lowering, manual landing flap operation, with manual brake operation to stop the aircraft on semi prepared short grass airstrip with no reverse thrust available for us to stop the aircraft!

“After the runway inspection and assessment was carried out, we reviewed our duties as briefed and proceeded with the manual procedures accordingly to perform a safe landing.

“A single attempt was planned as we cannot afford to execute a go around as this phenomenon may lead to the detrimental situation as we were operating manually on abnormal situations.”    ‘Grave situation’ but safe landing  

“Despite the grave situation, we managed to land the aircraft safely without further incident.

“A burst of applause erupted in the cabin as the Caribou came to a halt. 

“This long gruelling ordeal took us 1hrs and 20 minutes of flight hours. 

“As providence had it, it was good that the incident happened in a daylight flight and not at night as the problem areas would have been greater.

“In retrospect I am grateful for the RMAF for having given me the opportunity to serve the nation as a pilot and contribute in my small way to national security and development.

“To me these two squadrons and the flying experiences with the Caribou laid the foundation of my operational experience and knowledge which put me in good stead maturing me in the process.

“This stint taught me never to take anything for granted, to be level headed at all times and trust in your knowledge and skills and to the Almighty at all times.” 

Editor’s Note: Keen to set up a chat group with the 32 students and teacher to pave the way for a reunion, Capt Pui can be contacted at 0192692779.