Sonar search for missing PAF pilots bears ‘significant findings’

PCG divers retrieving a debris that was believed to be part of the missing OV-10. Photo by PCG Palawan

MANILA, Philippines—A sonar equipment used in the search of  two Philippine Air Force pilots who have been missing since their twin-engine propeller plane went down Sunday night off Puerto Princesa City has detected “significant findings,” the military said.

First Lieutenant Cheryl Tindog, Western Command spokesman, told INQUIRER.net  the sonar imaging search found Thursday morning an object at about 200 feet deep.

Tindog expressed hope that the detected object would be wreckage of the OV-10 Bronco, which failed to return to an air strip on the western island of Palawan during a night flying mission.

Two Philippine Air Force pilots,  Major Jonathan Ybañez and First Lieutenant Abner Trust Nacion, remain missing.

A diving team from the Naval Special Warfare Group arrived Thursday to conduct underwater search, Tindog said.

The crash is the latest in a string of deadly accidents involving surplus and often old foreign aircraft acquired by the Philippine military.

The air force’s fleet of 30 Broncos were acquired from the United States in 1991 and Thailand in 2004.

Developed in the 1960s as a counter-insurgency aircraft by the US Air Force, the Broncos can carry heavy ammunition for a few hours in the air.

They are used primarily for close air support missions against Muslim and communist insurgents, mainly on the southern island of Mindanao.

However, they are also used to monitor the archipelago’s extensive coastal areas, as well as for search and rescue missions in the disaster-prone Philippines. With Agence France-Presse