A fortnight ago, news editor John Babb said to me "girl, you could look for a Trini to be in anything that might happen anywhere in the world." You can well imagine what was my first thought when the Singapore Airlines B-747 jetliner crashed on take-off from Taipei's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport last Tuesday night. Was there a Trinidadian on board. To date there are no reported Trinidadian casualties but I knew that we had to be involved at some level and remembered that I did know a local airline pilot who had flown with SIA for just under two years from 1978 to 1980.
Ralph Thompson was one of the BWIA pilots who was readily employed by Singapore Airlines as Captain B-707's when the national carrier's entire pilot force was fired during the pilots strike in 1978. He eventually rejoined BWIA in 1980 until his retirement in 1989. In what is definitely a first in this country and could probably make the Guiness Book of Records, Ralph Thompson is the eldest of four brothers, Mervyn, Melville and Junior, who have all been captains of the BWIA fleet.
Captain Thompson enjoyed flying with SIA "immensely as they operted like an airline is supposed to do, but this was home. Singapore Airlines is a great airline which is very well organised and their training is second to none hence the reason they are easily the best and most successful airline in south east Asia including Qantas. This crash must have been traumatic for the airline, with a record like they had and did not want blemished at all. They really have a good reputation and have had only one incident that I know of but it was nothing fatal. This is their first major accident ."
Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport, the scene of the crash of flight SQ006, may not be as familiar as Piarco to Captain Thompson, but having flown out of Taipei many times for SIA, he did say that "the airport is as modern as most airports in the world, and far more modern than Piarco, with all the facilities you would find in Europe and North America. A lot of military stuff goes in there so it is a very modern airport."
He was clear that "it was difficult to say what had been the cause of the crash. If a typhoon was in the area, no doubt it would have been gusting" and he is sure that "when the story comes out, the wind is going to be a factor."
"At this time, the basic thing so far is that nobody can say did this airplane get airborne or not which is a very important part in ascertaining what may have caused the accident and how come more people did not die. If they got airborne and came back down to the ground obviously it would have been more catastrophic. No one seems sure whether the aircraft actually took off or not and although they have found the black box it is not a straight forward case of deciphering the performance tape as special machinery is needed to do this. The voice tape however comes straight off the box."
With regards to speculation as to whether the pilot or air traffic control has the last say on take-off in bad weather conditions, as television reports did show that there was a typhoon (a hurricane in our part of the world) just offshore, Captain Thompson explained: "Once the airport is open it is the Captain's decision. A lot of factors come into play at take off when the captain starts talking to Air Traffic Control to see whether the weather is within limits. It can be within limits and in seconds phenomenal changes of wind with direction and intensity will cause problems for the crew."
So that if the wind intensity is within limits the airport stays open, if it is too hard the airport closes. Once the airport is declared open, the decision to take off or not to take off is that of the Captain, whether those limits are within or above the airplane's limits. Each airplane has its own take off and landing limits as far as wind is concerned. Once the Taipei airport was open it was the Captain's decision.
One report says that three survivors as well as the pilot reported hitting an object on the runway but no one has thus far offered an explanation of what it might have been. "Airports which are properly overseen do not normally leave things to sit near to an active runway, they are put a certain distance away. But I have seen baggage carts in Florida taken up by gusts of wind and plowed into the side of a BWIA aeroplane" says Thompson.
Should the SIA captain have aborted his take-off in what has been said to have been very rainy and windy conditions. "There is a point down the runway at rotate speed where the aircraft is about to get airborne. Wind conditions could be right up to half way down the runway and a second later there is a gust just on rotate speed, and you can have a handful of problems with windshear which is the change of a headwind into a tailwind resulting in a sudden loss of airspeed causing the aircraft to lose lift and it cannot remain airborne so that if halfway down the runway without notice you got a tailwind, you do not get off the ground." But he reassures us that all modern airports have equipment to tell if windshear is expected, and one of the things pilots do not do if there is windshear is take off as it has the potential to kill you. "We are trained in special procedures to be able to survive unexpected windshear because you never deliberately fly into windshear."
"For an aircraft to take off a lot of factors come into play, such as, determined speeds for aborting the take-off, after which you must continue the take-off. If you try to stop and there is not enough remainder of runway, you will run off." Speeds are pre-calculated by every airline, so SIA will have co-factored in things such as temperature, weight of the aeroplane, wind direction, wind speed, length of runway. The only things which can change without notice are climatic conditions, mainly wind direction and wind speed.
Although Singapore Airlines can boast of well trained pilots, one of the things Thompson and the other pilots from BWIA were told in 1978 during training with Singapore Airlines was about the inflexibility of the ethnic Chinese. "We were warned by personnel when we joined that they will do everything exactly as the book dictates. When situations arise nothing else comes into the equation. They are not flexible that way at all. People from the west do know how to use the law but the situation at the time will determine what your reactions might be. For them it is the book way."