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Volume
14, Number 10 |
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Also
in this section: High
ranking cops from Chile and Panama killed in Calidonia business
district helicopter crash
Omar's
old chopper goes
down over Avenida Central by Eric Jackson, from other media A 40-year-old Huey helicopter that the president's father, the late military strongman General Omar Torrijos, used to fly around in --- SAN 100 --- lost power and crashed into a store room of an Avenida Central store on the afternoon of June 29 , killing 11 of the 12 people aboard and injuring at least five people on the ground. The aircraft was carrying six members of a high level Chilean police delegation led by General José Alejandro Bernales, commander of the militarized Caribeneros national police force, and six members of Panama's law enforcement agencies, led by Police Commissioners Gerardo Polanco (head of the Transito police) and María Ángela de Celis (police personnel director). The Chilean delegation, in Panama to sign a bilateral law enforcement assistance agreement, had been with their Panamanian hosts on an excursion to the Colon Free Zone and had planned to land at the helicopter pad at the Hotel Miramar on Avenida Balboa. For an as yet unexplained reason they changed their plans and were flying over the city with the intention of landing at Albrook when the mishap occurred. In addition to Bernales, Polanco and de Celis, Chileans Teresa Bianchi (Bernales's wife), Oscar Tapia, Carolina Reyes Cruz, Ricardo Orozco and Mauricio Funzalida were killed, along with Panamanians Calixto Cedeño, Juan Delgado Pinzón (the pilot) and Reynaldo Serna. Three employees of the Banana Price store had left the rear stock room moments before the helicopter crashed into it, and five workers in that establishment were treated for a variety of injuries, none of them life threatening. Co-pilot Hernaldo Carrasco, the only survivor of those aboard SAN-100, said that there was an engine problem --- as yet unidentified --- just before the helicopter lost power and crashed into the rear of the Banana Price store on Avenida Central at Calle Q, across from the Machetazo department store. Part of the falling helicopter also squashed an automobile that was parked unattended on the street next to the store. The problem was not the lack of fuel --- when the chopper fell the contents of teh fuel tanks exploded, and it took the bomberos more than six hours to bring the aviation fuel-fed blaze under control. The accident's cause will be investigated by an international team including people from the Panamanian and Chilean governments and the helicopter's US manufacturer. Panama has also routinely notified the US National Air Transport Safety Board, because the helicopter was American-made by Bell and that agency may also lend assistance to the investigation. There is also a Canadian angle to the investigation because the motors were made in Canada by Pratt & Whitney. Such probes typically take many months, and this one began shortly after the accident as the police cordoned off the entire area so that investigators could recover all pieces of the helicopter. Because of the danger of electrocutions or additional fires at the accident scene, power was cut off to much of the Avenida Central and Avenida Peru business district for the following couple of days, and that also had the advantage of keeping shopping crowds away from the area and out of the investigators' way. Before all the pieces had been picked up, some of the more ghoulish media were publishing front page photos of the mutilated bodies of some of the victims. Several individuals, including one particularly discredited website owner who purported to re-enact the crash on a flight simulator, claimed to "investigate" the accident's cause based on very little evidence. It was also noticed by reporters from several Panamanian and Chilean media that at the time of the accident the government's purchasing website had been "urgently" soliciting bids for a trunnion assembly, a part crucial to the helicopter's ability to fly. However, the Torrijos administration maintained that the Huey had passed its routine inspections and the urgency of the request was to keep all of the important spare parts in stock. The co-pilot's version about a problem with the motor indicates that the accident probably wasn't caused by a catastrophic trunnion failure. The crash prompted comments from various of the government's critics alleging that this was but one more example of the current administration's inattention to the maintenance of public properties of almost every description. Second Vice President Rubén Arosemena, however, told La Prensa that the crash indicates a need to renovate the government's entire fleet of aircraft. The National Air Service (SAN) whose helicopter went down is, like the National Maritime Service (SMN) coast guard, a law enforcement agency independent from the National Police but like the police under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Government and Justice. The Torrijos administration proposes to merge both the SAN and the SMN into the police command structure and put the combined quasi-military organization under a separate vice ministry for public safety within the Ministry of Government and Justice. President Torrijos used scandals within the old Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) to justify taking that force away from the Public Ministry and merge it into the National Police, and might be able to invoke similar arguments if the crash ends up being attributed to negligent maintenance. However, investigations of such accidents quite frequently take more than one year to complete and this one may not be over before Torrijos's term ends on September 1, 2009. Were it entirely a domestic matter the president could easily take action to speed up or otherwise manipulate the accident probe, but due to Chilean and US involvement higher than usual standards of professionalism and independence will likely apply in this case. UPDATE: Surviving co-pilot contradicts his superiors On June 9, after several days recovering in a hospital and several more days being guarded from reporters in a hotel, co-pilot Ernaldo Carrasco, a 24-year-old second lieutenant with the National Air Service (SAN), held a press conference during a break in a meeting of the Civil Aereonautics Authority (ACC) technical board investigating the SAN 100 helicopter crash. Carrasco contradicted his superiors, SAN director Rigoberto Gordón, Vice Minister of Government and Justice and Manuel Antonio Noriega's adjutant Major Severino Mejía and Minister of Government and Justice and member of Noriega's general staff Colonel Daniel Delgado Diamante. Those three men had maintained that the helicopter was in perfect mechanical condition and opined that pilot error may have caused the crash. But Carrasco concurred with the dying declarations of his colleague, pilot Juan Delgado, that there was an engine problem that led to the crash. Investigators from Pratt & Whitney and Bell Helicopter were also at the meeting, and they said that initial evidence is that one of the motors wasn't operating normally, suggesting that this may indicate a maintenance problem. Also in
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©
2008 by Eric Jackson email: editor@thepanamanews.com or e_l_jackson_malo@yahoo.com Mailing
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