The team investigating the plane crash that killed nine persons in Calamba City in Laguna early this month is sending to a third-party firm in Australia the recovered cockpit voice recording device to determine further the cause of the crash.
“The aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder, which was retrieved from the crash, will be sent to an Australian third-party firm that will decode the recorder’s contents,” said Eric Apolonio, chief information officer and spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.
He said the data that will be gathered from the recorder will help members of the CAAP’s Aircraft Accident Investigation and Inquiry Board in determining what really transpired at the plane minutes before the incident.
Apolonio said the investigators also turned over some evidence, documents and personal belongings from the victims retrieved from the crash site to Lion Air, the aircraft operator, last Monday.
Among the recovered items include cash money, jewelry, documents, and passports belonging to the victims.
Apolonio said last Sunday, the aircraft wreckage has also been transported to the CAAP hangar to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport aviation complex in Pasay City.
“This development commence the reconstruction process for the aircraft as investigators continue to probe what caused the accident,” he said.
Investigators also coordinated with local authorities and first responders in Calamba to determine what hazards may be present at the crash site before and during the incident.
Some local residents claimed there was a lightning and heavy rains in the area before the incident happened.
Killed in the incident were plane pilot Capt. Jesus Fernandez and co-pilot First Officer Lino A. Cruz, Jr.; Dr. Garret Garcia; Kirk Eion Badilla and Yamato Togawa, both registered nurses; Tom Carr, a patient from New Zealand, and his wife Emma; flight mechanic Raymund Bulacja, and one Ryx Gil Laput.
CAAP officials said only eight of the nine passengers were listed in the flight manifesto of the 11-seater Beechcraft King Air type (BE350) medical evacuation aircraft.
It stated that “Erma Carr, a Filipina with New Zealand citizenship, is the wife of the New Zealander patient.”
Initial CAAP incident reports showed that the aircraft operated by Lion Air with registry number RP-C2296 crashed around 3 p.m. on Sept. 2in a private resort in Barangay Pansol.
A mother and her son, who are the caretakers of the resort where the plane crashed, were also hurt and rushed to a hospital in Calamba following the incident.
Authorities said the plane crash triggered a blaze in the area.
The flight, which comes from Dipolog Airport in the province of Zamboanga del Norte, “lost radar contact at around 3:10 p.m. while flying 25 nautical miles from Manila,” according to CAAP.
“The Philippine Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Center (PARCC) received an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) alert from the satellite-aided search and rescue initiative Corpas-Sarsat near Pansol, Laguna at 3:14 p.m,” it stated.