The 65-hectare logistics centre will house companies involved in aviation support, plus logistics operations and distribution centres.
The 51-hectare business park will have aviation and airport support offices and airline services.
Other facilities will include space for flight and air crew training providers, aeronautical research and development, modelling and simulation centres.
However, he has not set a time frame for the expansion as AirAsia is still searching for the right partners and working on securing licences from the respective governments.Melchito Castro, regional civil defense chief, said the heavy rains triggered by the tail end of a cold front in Northern Luzon delayed the team’s return here.
He said two Huey helicopters that were supposed to airlift the team members failed to land in a designated pickup area because of the foul weather.
On Tuesday, Chief Superintendent Roberto Damian, Cagayan Valley police director, called off plans to airlift the members from the site where the twin-engine Islander owned by ChemTrad Aviation Corp. crashed. He said the “erratic” weather had made flying over the area very risky.
Damian, who is also chairman of the Cagayan Valley regional disaster coordinating council (RDCC), lauded the bravery and proficiency of Air Force pilots who flew into bad weather over the Sierra Madre mountains on Monday morning in what he described as a daring retrieval operation.
“I can say that though we have the best pilots around, who have the guts to fly the harshest missions, we just cannot take any more risks,” he said, halting plans of additional sorties to the site on Tuesday to get the rescuers.
The Britten-Norman BN2 plane, known as Islander, crashed in Mt. Alas Diyes in Sitio Bayang in Baggao on April 2, minutes after it took off from the airport here for Maconacon town in Isabela.
Rescuers found the wreckage only on April 14, 12 days after it was reported missing.
The pilot, Captain Tomas Z. Yañez, co-pilot Captain Reiner Ruiz, and passengers Senior Police Officer 2 Rolly Castaños, Celestino Salacup, Abelardo Baggay, Joel Basilio, and James Bakilan, died in the crash.
The retrieval of their bodies capped more than two weeks of search and rescue operations deep in the mountains of Sierra Madre.
Captain Mannie Barradas, ChemTrad owner and board chairman, said the crash site was 5,000 meters above sea level, on a thickly-forested ridge with a 60-degree slope.
Because airlifting them from the site was no longer possible, rescuers would have to walk for another day and a half to a river below the mountains where it was safer for them to be ferried by a helicopter, he said.
The rescuers, including mountaineers, and village volunteers, hiked for three to four days to reach the site.
Director General Ruben Ciron of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) made this statement in the wake of Miaa General Manager Alfonso Cusi’s suggestion that runway 13-31 should be used by smaller aircraft classified as belonging to “general aviation [GenAv].”
Cusi made the suggestion to decongest international runway 06-24, and also to avoid its temporary closure during emergencies or accidents.
The Naia’s main runway was closed for three hours on Sunday after a light aircraft, belonging to the Care Jet Co. of the United States, aborted its takeoff about 8 p.m. when its landing gears erupted in fire and smoke.
The aircraft stopped in the middle of the runway, while responding firefighters prevented the fire from spreading.
No one among the four persons onboard were hurt, including the pilot, copilot and two medical assistants.
The Cessna jet flew in from Guam at 6 p.m. Sunday with a patient onboard, seeking medical treatment in the Philippines.
Due to the accident, scores of arriving international and domestic flights were diverted to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga. Normal operations at the Naia resumed at 11 p.m.
The Miaa chief, not wanting a repeat of the debacle, has suggested to the Naia Time Slotting Committee to review the scheduling of small aircraft, weighing 25,000 kilograms or below, by directing them to domestic runway 13-31.
“Aircraft like these are usually owned by operators at our GenAv and, therefore, would be most logical to make them use the domestic runway for landing and take-off. In so doing, we can maximize the use of the international runway for commercial operations,” Cusi added.
When asked to comment about the incident, Ciron said that air-traffic controllers assigned the Westwind II aircraft to take off on runway 06-24 since runway 13-31 is only used by light aircraft during daytime, or when good weather condition prevails.
“One of the solutions to decongest runway 06-24 is to convert runway 13-31 into an instrument runway,” Ciron said in a letter to Cusi on April 16.
“Instrument runways” could be used at day- or nighttime or during bad weather when pilots could use the navigational aids, such as the distance-measuring equipment, and the very high-frequency Omni-directional range, to land and take off safely.
However, before the domestic runway could be made into an all-weather runway, Ciron suggested that Cusi install in it a Runway Threshold Identification Light “to complete the airfield lighting system requirements for such runway.”
The Caap chief said a New Zealand aviation company, which also conducted flight checks in scores of provincial airports, had already subjected runway 13-31 to several flight checks. “The Caap had already designed the approach chart of runway 13 and had finished the corresponding flight checks,” Ciron said, adding that the foreign aviation experts have declared the runway safe for instrument approach.
The domestic runway used to be an instrument runway about 10 years ago, but was temporarily decommissioned after several tall buildings on Roxas Boulevard were built, disrupting the radio signals from the navigational aids.
The buildings were aligned with the domestic runway, and the radio signals coming from the navigational aids tended to be disrupted due to the buildings’ interference, Ciron said.
A decade ago, the then-Air Transportation Office sued the owners of the buildings for violation of aviation rules, forcing them to reduce the height of the concrete and glass buildings.
However, some of them remain at heights in violation of Caap rules, which made the nav-aids ineffective and dangerous to use, since their signals could mislead pilots.
Lately, Ciron has led the move to restore runway 13-31 to an all-weather runway, seeking the cooperation of the Miaa for a joint effort, so that the Naia could have two instrument runways and reduce the congestion that is now the bane of the 30-member Airline Operators Council.
The Caap has realigned the angle of radio signals for the safe use of pilots landing on the domestic airport, in conjunction with the proposed threshold lighting system.
Despite this, however, the domestic airport would remain a “nonprecision” runway due to the absence of an “instrument landing system,” which only runway 06-24 is equipped at the moment.
The presence of the tall buildings on the approach of the domestic runway would never allow an ILS to be installed there, Ciron told the BusinessMirror.
The Westwind2 twin-jet air ambulance belonging to CareJet, a medivac company based in Guam, lined up for take-off on Runway 24 at 8:18 pm. As it powered-up to gain speed, its left landing gear suddenly blew up and exposed the metal rim causing sparks to fly all over and setting the wheels on fire. As this happened, the flight crew, identified as Capt. Charles Cooper and Capt. Toshihiro Shima, brought the aircraft to an abrupt stop, jumped out of the aircraft and put out the fire using a fire extinguisher.
Airport emergency workers rushed to the disabled aircraft, which stopped some 200 meters from the take-off point, and assisted the airplane crew to completely put out the fire using chemical foam.
Both crew and the two Intensive Care Unit nurses, Matthew Keith and Eunice Neil, all got out of the incident unscathed.
With the aircraft blocking the main runway, the runway had to be closed with the air traffic controllers immediately releasing a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) about the disabled aircraft. As a result, 14 arriving flights from international and domestic destinations had to be diverted to other airports in the country.
Seven international and six domestic flights were diverted to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Pampanga while one PAL domestic flight was diverted to Cebu. The diverted flights included those from Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Continental Airlines, Royal Brunei Airways and Emirates Airlines. 28 other domestic flights were delayed as a result of the temporary runway closure.
Airport assistant general manager for Operations Octavio Lina disclosed that the plane recovery team had a hard time removing the aircraft from the runway because they lacked the necessary equipment to lift the airplane.
According to Lina, the airport management has the necessary recovery tools but only for aircraft types that are normally found in the country.
The Operations chief disclosed that the medivac aircraft was specially designed with an extremely low profile for easy egress and ingress making all of their tools unusable. It was learned that even the pneumatic lifting bags, which are normally placed under the wing and then inflated to raise a plane, proved useless as the bags were too big for the aircraft. The special axel jack was also too big for the type of aircraft and could not fit underneath the wheels to be lifted.
Finally, borrowing a forklift from a nearby hangar, the recovery team was finally able to lift the aircraft, place it on skates and tow it to a nearby aircraft maintenance hangar—clearing the runway by 11 pm.
An airport official said he will recommend to airport authorities the purchase of more aircraft recovery tools to considerably lessen the time it takes airport workers to clear the runway of any disabled aircraft. The equipment will include newer jacking and towing tools including an overhead crane with slings.
The airport official added that they will also try to decongest the airport runway by pushing earlier plans of moving General Aviation flights to nearby airports in Batangas, Cavite, or Pampanga.
"We’re very interested to operate flights to Brunei and Australia. We’ve been asking for entitlements so that we can offer low fares for these markets," said Candice A. Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice-president for marketing.
Cebu Pacific has sought 540 seat entitlements for three weekly Manila to Sydney flights, 300 seat entitlements for a twice-weekly Manila to Melbourne flight, and 360 seat entitlements for a twice-weekly Manila to Brisbane flight.
Cebu Pacific has also applied for "designation as official Philippine carrier to Brunei".
Flag-carrier Philippine Airlines, Inc. (PAL), meanwhile, said that it has no plans to increase flights to Australia at present and had not yet considered whether to mount fights to Brunei.
"We are on status quo for our flights to Australia," Jonathan P. Gesmundo of PAL’s Corporate Communications office said.
Last October, Lucio C. Tan-led PAL increased its Melbourne and Sydney flights from five times a week to daily flights.
Businessman Alfredo M. Yao said his budget airline Zest Airways, Inc. would also apply for entitlements to Australia.
"Yes, we have plans to mount flights to Australia as we are really aiming to carve niche markets in our flights. We also see some demand from there," Mr. Yao said.
Mr. Yao said that Zest was still weighing up their options as to whether they will mount flight to Brunei.
Last March, the country’s air panel finished air service negotiations with their Australian counterparts.
Over the course of two days it was decided that seat entitlements would be increased up to 6,000 seats from 2,500, for flights between Manila and Clark to Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
Flights between other regional airports in Australia and airports in the Philippines have no frequency or capacity restrictions.
The country also sealed new air service agreements with Brunei last April, with flight entitlements for both countries increased from one to two carriers, and from five to seven weekly flights.
Direct flights between the two airports are set to commence on May 8, with an initial passenger traffic volume of 20,000 Korean tourists, mostly students, their parents, and other family members wanting to visit La Union, Baguio City, and Benguet.
Top executives of Poro Point Management Corp. (PPMC), a subsidiary of the government-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), made the announcement upon arrival from their recent visit to Chungcheongbuk-do province in South Korea.
The delegation, headed by PPMC executive vice president and chief operating officer Anthony C. Manguiat, came back last April 2 from a “highly fruitful” visit to South Korea.
The BCDA, which spearheaded the expansion and upgrading of the San Fernando Airport, expected substantial increase in tourist arrivals and investments in Northern Philippines.
The group met with their Korean counterparts headed by Jang Soon Ja, director of the Korean Airports Corp., as well as with tourism and aviation officials of Chungcheongbuk-do. Poro Point’s development and the San Fernando Airport’s expansion are part of BCDA’s sustained conversion program through which former American bases are transformed into centers of socio-economic development.
Chungcheongbuk-do (North Chungcheong) is a province in the center of South Korea. It was formed in 1896 from the northeastern half of the former Chungcheong province. Its provincial capital is Cheongju.
Retrieval teams on board helicopters encountered bad weather at around 3 p.m., prompting them to turn back, said Chief Superintendent Roberto Damian, Cagayan Valley regional director.
Three helicopters, one with lift and hoist capabilities, were unable to drop equipment and food supplies to the retrievers as strong winds and low clouds prevented the choppers from making a steady hover over the bivouac area of the retrievers, Damian said.
The 54 rescuers from the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Army, and local government officials are now in the area.
The Chemtrad light plane (tail no. 764) was found on a heavily-forested slope in Sitio (sub-village) Bayang, Barangay (village) San Miguel in Baggao town after it went missing last April 2.
Onboard were Captains Tomas Yañez and Reiner Ruiz, the pilot and co-pilot, Senior Police Officer 2 Rolly Castaños, Celestino Salacup, Abelardo Baggay, Joel Basilio and James Bakilan.
The plane and its crew were bound for Maconacon town in Isabela province.
MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - Rescuers today found the wreckage of the private plane that was declared missing 12 days ago shortly after its take-off in northern Philippines but none of the seven people on board survived the crash.
"There were no survivors according to the report," said Cagayan Valley regional police director Chief Superintendent Roberto Damian, adding that the wreckage was found along the slope of a heavily vegetated area in Baggaop, Cagayan province.
The islander plane owned by Chemtrad Aviation Corp. took off on the morning of April 2 from Tuguegarao city in Cagayan but failed to reach its destination in Maconacon, Isabela province on time, prompting authorities to declare it missing.
Damian said military aircraft attempted retrieval operations in the past week but bad weather and strong winds and the lack of landing zone prevented the rescuers from reaching the crash site.
It was one of the two plane crashes in this month in northern Luzon region.
A presidential chopper crashed in the mountains of Ifugao province last week, killing eight people on board including senior aids of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Bad weather, again, was blamed for the tragedy while the authorities are still probing other possible causes.
The move will benefit more than 5,000 youth who during the pre-meltdown aviation boom trained as commercial pilots in countries such as Canada, Russia, the US and the Philippines, spending Rs25-30 lakh in the process, but are now without jobs. It will also benefit about 2,000 youth who are soon to complete pilot training.
The DGCA has prepared a draft proposal recommending foreign pilots' period of employment be reduced from three to two years and the retirement age for a pilot brought down from 65 to 60 years. The policy is likely to create 2,000 vacancies in the next six months, the official said.
Such is the job drought that Air India has received more than 1,350 responses to an advertisement for 30 trainee pilot posts. But just three years ago, there was a serious shortage of pilots in the country, necessitating emergency recruitment of pilots from abroad.
In 2007-08, 600 pilots were recruited on three-year contracts. It was then that thousands of Indians went abroad for pilot training. But by the time they finished their courses, the situation back home had changed leaving no demand for new pilots.
The Chemtrad light plane with tail number 764 that suddenly went missing in the province of Isabela Thursday morning was spotted by police rescue teams from Maconacon town between the villages of Flores and Riena Mercedez, said Chief Superintendent Roberto Damian, police regional office 2, director.
Damian said they have no information yet if the seven passengers, including a policeman, are alive, adding low visibility prevented a police team from pursuing the rescue operation.
However, rescue teams from nearby Divilacan and Maconacon towns have now been dispatched to the area to verify the report, he said.
Earlier, Damian said they have received reports that the light plane made an emergency landing in an air strip owned by American missionaries in Valley Cove in Baggao town.
The private plane piloted by Captain Tomas Yañez went missing after it took off from the Tuguegarao Airport at 8 a.m. Thursday. The plane was bound for Maconacon town in Isabela but it did not reach its destination.
The plane had seven passengers: Captains Yañez and Ruiz (pilot and co-pilot), Senior Police Officer 2 Rolly Castaños, Celestino Salacup, Abelardo Baggay, Joel Basilio and James Bakilan.
Damian earlier said that the weather condition in the provinces was rainy.
