Bodies of pilots recovered from Bulacan crash site

ARMY soldiers discovered the wreckage of a helicopter carrying pilots Miguel Logronio and Jay Gregorio in this dense portion of Doña Remedios Trinidad town in Bulacan province on Aug. 27. They were on a rescue mission on Aug. 22 when their aircraft crashed. PHOTO COURTESY OF 48TH INFANTRY (GUARDIANS) BATTALION, PHILIPPINE ARMY

SAN RAFAEL, Bulacan—The bodies of two pilots of a helicopter on a rescue mission were recovered on Saturday, six days after it crashed in the mountains of Doña Remedios Trinidad (DRT) town.

The remains of retired Col. Miguel Logronio and Jay Gregorio were found near the wrecked helicopter by members of the Army’s 48th Infantry Battalion at Sitio Macua in Barangay Kabayunan in DRT.

The pilots, on Aug. 22, took part in a search, rescue, and retrieval operation for the employees of a construction firm who were trapped in a tunnel of the Sumag River Diversion Project (SRDP).

The helicopter took off on the same day at the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System compound in Barangay Bigte in Norzagaray town, also in Bulacan, but after a few minutes, the Air Transportation Office control tower lost contact with the chopper.

On Aug. 13, floodwater spawned by heavy monsoon rain submerged the SRDP site at the foot of the Sierra Madre mountain range in General Nakar town in Quezon province. Initially, two workers died and four others were declared missing in that incident.

The project involves the construction of a 600-meter tunnel that would be connected to the Umiray-Angat transbasin tunnel that leads to Angat Dam in Bulacan.  Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon