Double Six pilot had history of poor performance, says report

FMT:

Double Six pilot had history of poor performance, says report

The pilot had struggled to pass ground and air tests and had also received a series of poor write-ups from the company’s check pilots, says the declassified report.

The 1976 plane crash known as the Double Six crash claimed the lives of then Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens and 10 others. (Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives pic)


PETALING JAYA: The pilot in the 1976 plane crash that claimed the lives of then Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens and 10 others had a history of poor performance in flying, according to the declassified report on the crash.

The report said the pilot, Gandhi J Nathan, had a total of 3,062 flying hours, based on available records.

“Investigation of the pilot’s history indicated that he had some difficulty in passing both ground and air tests and only succeeded in gaining a Nomad endorsement on his licence in February 1976.”

The report said he had earlier received “a series of poor write-ups from the company’s check pilots”.

It added that Gandhi’s training and performance record with the company that operated the flight, Penerbangan Sabah, was “marginal”.

“The pilot’s original flying log book was claimed to have been burnt in June 1969 and the replacement log book was claimed to have been stolen in November 1975.

“The transfer of the total hours from the two previous flying log books cannot be authenticated nor is it verified by the company. The monthly summaries since the new log book was opened until the last entry was also never checked by the company.

“The total flying hours are only an approximation based on the available information in the pilot’s new log book and from the company’s flight authorisation book.”

It said Gandhi also failed to respond twice to Kota Kinabalu Air Traffic Control’s (ATC) request to report passing 2,000ft and on the landing clearance, before the plane crashed.

The report, which was declassified today, also said pathological tests on the pilot cleared him of suffering from any “effects” of alcohol or drugs. However, there was evidence to suggest he was tired and had a mild stomach upset.

The report said an estimated load of 325 pounds (about 147kg) was placed in the plane’s aft (rear) baggage compartment.

“The maximum permissible load in the aft baggage compartment is 198 pounds (about 89kg),” it pointed out.

However, it said the plane’s total weight at take-off was 8,065 pounds, lower than the set weight of 8,500 pounds.

The report recommended that Penerbangan Sabah be restricted to operating aircraft and helicopters under 6,000 pounds (over 2,721kg) until its operations and engineering procedures were improved and satisfied the civil aviation department.

“An aeronautical information circular should also be issued to all pilots and operators stressing the importance of complying with the load, fuel, defect, weather and acceptance procedures before any flight.”

The report was jointly prepared by the civil aviation department, the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the Australian transport department.

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kt comments:

In the loading of a transport aircraft, there are 2 important factors to be considered; firstly there is the outright weight per se, as in above where the Nomad aircraft's total weight at take-off was 8,065 pounds, lower than the set maximum weight of 8,500 pounds.

However, the compartment limitation for the plane’s aft (rear) baggage compartment was 325 pounds compared to the listed limit of 198 pounds. The figures may seem small to us, but for a small transport plane like the Nomad it could have been very significant in the next important factor of loading, namely 'balance'.

Balance in aircraft loading is just as important as weight per se as an imbalanced aircraft can prove perilous to handle in certain circumstances as, say, a stall - see following extracts of my post published on 12 June 2013, ten years ago, namely: Conspiracy theory on Tun Fuad Stephens' fatal flight:

I had then written:

Safe flight is possible only when Lift is managed effectively by the pilot to the required amount, and likewise with Drag. That's as far as I dare proceed with the fangle technical stuff (of aerodynamics), which would be best left to pilots or aerodynamists.

But suffice to say, the control and management of both Lift and Drag becomes crucial during the take-off and the landing phase of a flight. If a pilot mismanages them, say during take-off or/and landing, a Stall may occur, with the symptoms and consequences occurring as per P.J. Granville-Edge's description of "... something was wrong when his plane began to vibrate" and “The Nomad’s nose dropped. The plane began a one-and-a-half turn spiral plummet. It did not pull out of that twisting nose-dive and crashed into shallow water.”



A more crude but impactful, though technically incorrect, description of a plane suffering an unrecoverable stall would be 'dropping from the air like a stone (or a ton of bricks)'.

What is meant by 'unrecoverable stall'?

A stall by itself is generally recoverable even if the pilot takes no action provided there is enough height (or altitude); left to itself the aeroplane will eventually recover into what it has been trimmed (or set up) for.

When there isn't enough safe altitude, say when the aeroplane is near the ground like around 500 feet or less, the pilot must take swift and correct actions to recover from the stall. It's doable and practised regularly at lengths by every working pilot.

Thus an 'unrecoverable stall' is one where the pilot doesn't have enough altitude to take his recovering actions or has taken incorrect actions (unlikely for a skilled pilot), or there is aggravating circumstances like an imbalanced loading which hinders the pilot from executing the required recovery actions.

Thus, from immediate above sentence, an imbalanced loaded aircraft could pose handling difficulties or even loss of handling in circumstances as those in a stall near the ground (as when landing) - I can only suspect that could have been what happened to the Sabah Air Nomad as I did not and still do not have access to the investigation findings. I had also penned about the possibility of an imbalanced loading in the fatal Nomad:

The latter [imbalanced loading] is the far more dangerous issue because an unbalanced loading and thus an imbalanced aircraft can present control problems for the pilot. The control problems become more acute during landing especially if the fuel which had earlier offset (minimised) the imbalance has been burnt off during the flight.

To make matters worse, the investigation findings mention the pilot's "marginal" skills which no doubt (speculation only) could have added to the mess. This was what I penned ten years ago in above-mentioned posting about Captain Gandhi J Nathan:

What about the pilot? Obviously his skills, experience and knowledge can minimise or even counter the threat of a stall or even an aeroplane suffering from an imbalanced state. But as we have read, even the original test pilot for the Nomad aeroplane was killed, what more with a Sabah Flying Club pilot*, Captain Gandhi Nathan.

* in this remark I have to admit I was severely scolded by one of my readers for 'looking down' on the skills of a Sabah Flying Club pilot, but alas, facts (in comparison) were and still are painful.



Though my uncle didn't personally know Captain Gandhi, he knew of him from his (my uncle's) several visits at the invitation of his air force friends to the Royal Selangor Flying Club within the old KL airport grounds, which was subsequently turned into a TUDM (RMAF) station when the KL airport was shifted to Subang. Unc even had a few drinks together with Captain Gandhi though as part (guest) of a group consisting of those air force friends and some Royal Selangor Flying Club members.

As my uncle recalls, Captain Gandhi was not an air force trained pilot nor was he trained in Perth, Scotland (not the Perth in Australia), where I was informed the very early Malayan Airways (daddy of SIA and MAS) sent most of its pilot cadets to be trained.

Captain Gandhi was trained at the Royal Selangor Flying Club. After obtaining his Commercial Pilot Licence, he joined Sabah Flying Club which under Tun Mustapha Harun had all sorts of aircraft (aeroplanes and helicopters) and provided a career opportunity for low-hour pilots like Captain Gandhi who wasn't trained by the air force or an overseas commercial flying training school. Pilots from the latter two groups monopolized the airline recruitment.

You may wish to peruse my posting of 10 years back in full (see below and above), which was prompted by a ludicrous conspiracy theory spurred on by political prejudice.

Conspiracy theory on Tun Fuad Stephens' fatal flight - (12 June 2013)