Objects from missing chopper recovered in Palawan town

INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY — Two objects believed to be from the missing private helicopter, which was used as an air ambulance, were found by a search and rescue team in Balabac town in Palawan province on Thursday, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said.

In a phone interview, Capt. Dennis Labay, commander of Coast Guard Palawan District, said the debris were not exactly part of the body of the “Yellow Bee” chopper of Philippine Adventist Mission Aviation Services (Pamas), which went missing on Wednesday.

Labay said one of these was an “automatic fire suppression device for aircraft.”

It was found in the waters off Lumbucan Island by personnel aboard the government-owned Multirole Response Vessel 4402 (BRP Malabrigo), who joined the search and rescue operation Thursday morning, Labay said.

Hope for survivors

On Wednesday night, the PCG confirmed that the chopper went missing around noon off Balabac town.

In a statement, the PCG said the Pamas helicopter was last contacted at 12:10 p.m. Its location then was 35 nautical miles (64.82 kilometers) east of mainland Balabac, within the vicinity of Lumbucan Island.

READ: Medical chopper goes missing in Palawan, says CAAP

The chopper left Brooke’s Point town at 9 a.m. to fetch a patient on Mangsee Island, one of Balabac’s islands. It was on its way back to Brooke’s Point when it disappeared.

Aboard the chopper were its pilot, Capt. Daniel Lui; American nurse Janelle Adler; patient Kayrun Nesa Sahibad; and his relatives, Nastru Sahibad and Sug Hamja.

On Thursday afternoon, Labay told the Inquirer that they also found patient Sahibad’s pillow in the waters near Lumbucan.

“Hopefully tomorrow (Friday) we can pinpoint the exact location [of the chopper] if it really crashed, maybe using a sonar scanner. If it didn’t sink deep into the water, maybe our personnel could dive [in the area],” he said.Four units of the PCG were involved in the search and rescue operations, aided by personnel from the police and the military in Palawan.

READ: PCG: Possible debris of missing air ambulance spotted off Palawan

The Tactical Operations Wing-West of the Philippine Air Force also dispatched a Sokol helicopter to augment the operations, while the Navy vessel BRP Jose Rizal (FF-150), along with two others from Naval Forces West, had been deployed to Balabac.

Commander Ariel Coloma, the Armed Forces’ Western Command spokesperson, said two other Navy gunboats were also sent to “scour the possible area where the chopper may have crashed.”

“Moreover, we also diverted our navy frigate from Tawi-Tawi to the area to widen the search range,” Coloma said in a text message to the Inquirer.

—GERALDFORD TICKE