Now you know the importance of a second runway

For our special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky we once again bring to your TV screens Mr. Tourism himself, Sir Robert “Bobby” Joseph, who was in an advisory function under former Tourism secretary Wanda Teo, but since she has been replaced by DOT Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat, Sir Bobby now supports the new DOT secretary.

I have interviewed Bobby Joseph so many times in the 18 years our show has been on and I cannot forget the first time I interviewed him during a taping at Plantation Bay when I was still for open tourism and he convinced me this was detrimental for the Philippines because foreign airlines used Overseas Filipino Workers to bring their planes to the Philippines and do not offer the country any reciprocity to make business from them. Since then, we became close friends, more so when I learned that he had fourth-stage cancer, and I became one of his prayer warriors.

So listen to what is happening on the Tourism front with Mr. Joseph on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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It was indeed an unforgettable Friday because flights to the Philippines were diverted to available airports that could handle wide-bodied aircraft. This was because a Chinese Xiamen Airlines 737-800 crash-landed on the main runway of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Its landing gear collapsed and the left engine fell off, which gives you an idea of how violent the landing of this plane was. It prevented other wide-bodied aircraft from landing in NAIA. The plane was finally removed by NAIA officials early Saturday morning and flight operations resumed.

According to a report from The Philippine STAR, the plane was on its second attempt to land and it skidded out of the main runway and its left engine was ripped off in the process. All 157 passengers were all unhurt in this nearly disastrous landing. Now Department of Transportation (DOTr) officials would like to check Xiamen Airlines pilots on their proper training. But no one was thinking of what I’ve been writing about in my columns, the latest one was in STAR column only last Thursday when I requested Congress to create the National Transportation Safety Board, which our country really needs.

What is not being talked about is the huge financial cost to Philippine Airlines whose wide-bodied international aircraft like the Boeing 777 could not land in NAIA when the runway was closed. Two of their Boeing planes were diverted to the Mactan-Cebu International Airport and another was diverted to Clark Air Base. This means that the passengers had to be housed in a hotel until NAIA officials removed the crashed aircraft away from the runway.

When we have accidents like this, it should not be the NAIA or the Civil Aviation Authority that should investigate the incident, as it really is the job of the NTSB. This was what Air Safety Foundation of the Philippines (ASFP) President Amado Soliman told me when I met him during the 17th Balloon Festival in Clark Air Base. In fact Soliman told me that the officials of the ASFP were thankful to me for keeping the pressure on having an NTSB in the Philippines.

Just think, only one Boeing 737 skidded off the main runway at the NAIA and the whole Philippines suffered for this mishap. Philippine Airlines had to send its Boeing planes to Cebu and to Clark and put the passengers in a hotel. This is a huge unexpected expense for the airline. Just imagine how many passengers were either delayed or their flights cancelled because of this incident?

This brings us to the other problem; aviation officials in Manila always say that we don’t need a second runway. Fifteen years ago, I started asking DOTC officials for Mactan to have a second runway; they end up telling me that we don’t need it. If NAIA had a second runway, the ill-fated Xiamen Airlines veering off the runway would not have caused grave delays in the aviation industry.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.