Aviatour to respect investigation results

The management of Aviatour Air said it will wait for results of a government inquiry but is aware the company is in a precarious situation after initial reports leaked that pilot error was found to be a factor in the Aug. 18 plane crash that killed Interior Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Capt. Antonio Jureidini, accountable manager of Aviatour Air, said they will no longer question the result of the investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP).

Aviatour Air’s operations were suspended after the crash . Its certificate to operate expired last October 29 but instead of renewing it, the CAAP advised them to get a recertification, said Jureidini.

He said they hope to resume operation on the first week of December to cater to about 45 foreign students who chose to stay in the Philippines.

About 100 other students went home to their native countries while waiting for the flight school to resume operation.

On Monday, the CAAP will inspect the flying school, the third step of a five-phase certification process.

Two plane crashes of Aviatour within this year has caused financial problems for the company.

Last March, the company was investigated after one of its chartered flights, a Cessna 172 crashlanded in Mambajao, Camiguin province, killing a Norweigan tourist and the Filipino pilot.

Because of the two crashes, the company suffered financial losses and had to lay off 10 of its 80 employees.

But Jureidini said the company is still alive especially since five new investors have kept the company afloat.The Bahinting family, however, still owns majority of the Aviatour stocks.

On the CAAP inquiry, which noted lapses by the pilot, chief executive officer Jessup Bahinting, Jureidini said the pilot used his best judgment.

“If he succeeded, he would have been a hero,” he said.

“He made a good pilot’s decision. I would have done the same,” he said, about the initial CAAP findings that Bahinting erred when he did not to turn back to Cebu at the first sign of engine trouble of the ill-fated Piper Seneca aircraft.

“Nobody should command or discount the decsion of the pilot. Why do you think he proceeded to Masbate instead of going back to the Mactan airport? There is such a thing as a point of no return when you have to proceed rathern than go back because it would take longer,” he said.

The crash killed Robredo, Bahinting, and his Nepalese co-pilot Kshitiz Chand. Senior Insp. June Paolo Abrazado, an aide of Robredo, survived.