PAF pilot dies steering troubled OV-10 out of populated area

He could have escaped in time but an Air Force pilot chose to risk his life in order to save innocent lives.

Capt. Aniano Amatong Jr. made the supreme sacrifice of staying behind to maneuver his plunging aircraft away from houses and into an open fishpond in Paombong, Bulacan yesterday morning, even as he ordered his co-pilot to eject to safety.

As soon as he saw the local residents were no longer in danger, Amatong tried to eject from the attack plane he was piloting but it was too late.

"This is heroism of the highest order," said Philippine Air Force (PAF) spokesman Lt. Col. Restituto Padilla.

Padilla said Amatong, 31, could have easily bailed out to safety when his OV-10 Bronco bomber encountered engine and mechanical trouble at around 9 a.m. yesterday.

However, Amatong opted to stay behind to ensure the two-seater aircraft would not slam into a thickly populated area in Barangay Binakod in Paombong.

"He did not eject as he avoided crashing his plane into a residential area," Padilla said.

TV footage showed parts of the plane jutting out of the sprawling fishpond. Villagers reported seeing one of the engines spewing smoke before the aircraft plunged in a fishpond.

"His (Amatong’s) body was recovered about three meters away from the wreckage of the plane with a partially opened parachute, indicating that after his heroic act, he also tried to eject," Padilla said.

Co-pilot Capt. James Acosta survived the incident by ejecting from the aircraft and parachuting to safety.

Amatong ordered Acosta to eject, then apparently struggled to steer the troubled plane away from houses, Padilla said.

The twin-engine OV-10 took off from the Sangley air base in Cavite en route to a military exercise and went down midway to Clark Field in Pampanga, Padilla said.

The cause of the crash has yet to be determined, Padilla said.

Amatong, a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class ’96, was considered a high-timer pilot having logged in more than 1,000 flying hours.

Maj. Augusto de la Peña, deputy director of the Philippine Air Force public information office, said Acosta did not sustain any serious injuries, although he was seen limping after his parachute landed some meters away from the crash site. Acosta was helped by villagers and later brought him to the Villamor Air Base hospital.

Air Force chief Lt. Gen. Jose Reyes ordered the grounding of the entire OV-10 fleet after the accident.

"As a matter of procedure, all the OV-10 aircraft of the Air Force have been ordered grounded until investigation into the crash is finished," De la Peña said.

Final moments

De la Peña said the OV 10, together with 13 other similar aircraft, took off from the 15th Strike Wing at the Daniel Atienza Base in Sangley at about 8:36 a.m. to participate in joint attack training exercises with US air force men at the Clark Special Economic Zone under the Joint Operations Task Force Philippines.

"By 9 a.m., we lost contact with them," De la Peña said.

Acosta told his superiors that their plane first encountered trouble in its left engine while they were flying at 3,000 feet.

Acosta, of PMA Class ’95, said they proceeded to initiate measures to stabilize the 0V-10 which he claimed were successful.

But as soon as the plane stabilized, a secondary defect, which he failed to identify, developed.

Acosta said the attack plane started losing altitude and upon reaching 2,000 feet they both decided to bail out. Acosta first ejected but Amatong stayed behind to steer the plane, which was headed into a residential area, toward a fishpond.

Padilla said that upon seeing the doomed plane could no longer endanger lives, Amatong tried to bail out but it was too late.

De la Peña described the ill-fated jet as "a total wreck."

Several residents said they saw something leaking from the OV-10 before it went down.

De la Peña said the accident investigation board of the 15th Strike Wing is investigating the crash.

"The fact that the other pilot survived will help in the investigation since we can get his testimony. But his testimony will also have to be corroborated by physical evidence," he said.

Parts of the aircraft will be sent to the 410th Maintenance Wing at Clark for examination, he added.

As of yesterday, Air Force probers have not released any information on what could have caused the OV-10 to crash.

"There are three major factors to be looked into, including environmental, human, and mechanical factors," De la Peña said.

The Air Force has about a dozen OV-10s, which are used for reconnaissance, cloud seeding procedures and bombing missions during counterinsurgency operations mostly in the southern region of Mindanao, where government troops are battling communist and Muslim guerrillas.

With the decommissioning of the country’s aging F-5 Freedom Fighter jets late last year, the OV-10s have played a secondary role with the Air Force’s remaining six S-211 trainer jets reconfigured as fighter planes to defend the country’s air space.

The Philippine military is among Asia’s weakest and partly depends on allies like the United States to help train and arm its troops.

According to De la Peña, the PAF obtained its OV 10s way back in 1991. Some, he said, were received as "excess defense articles" from the United States although others were donated by Thailand.

As of yesterday, Air Force investigators were still determining whether the crashed aircraft came from the US grants.

De la Peña said the OV-10 aircraft is known to be versatile.

"It’s a ground attack aircraft that can provide close air support to ground troopers. It can also be effective in aerial reconnaissance operations, and we used the aircraft in patrolling the Spratly islands in Palawan," he said.

De la Peña also noted OV 10s were used by the US during the Vietnam war for observation missions to mark ground targets.

He said the operational vacuum to be created by the grounding of OV 10s will be filled in by the Air Force MV 510s. "Of course, the OV-10s can be flown anytime in case of national emergency," he added. — With reports from Ding Cervantes, Ric Sapnu, Rainier Allan Ronda, Cecille Suerte Felipe, AP