Double Six Crash: Aussie probe backs plane off-balance finding

 

The declassified report by Australia's Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) investigation team on the 1976 Double Six Crash supported the local probe's findings that the plane's rear was overloaded.

This caused the plane to be off-balance and tilt upwards, which caused problems when the flaps were engaged for landing at Kota Kinabalu Airport as the plane's controls were pushed forward to the limit.

The 1976 plane crash killed 11 people, including the then Sabah chief minister Fuad Stephens, and has long been the subject of controversy and speculation.

The Australian report was declassified after an application by former Sabah chief minister Harris Mohd Salleh’s lawyers.

According to the report, the location of the baggage had merely been "eyeballed" during loading and it had not been weighed.

Additionally, the loading of the rear luggage compartment was supervised by a co-pilot who was not qualified to fly the GAF Nomad N22B and was only accompanying the pilot Gandhi Nathan upon the latter’s invitation.

The co-pilot did not board the flight to make room for an additional passenger in the co-pilot’s seat.

Like the Malaysian report, the Australian team also pointed fingers at the pilot, Gandhi, whom it said had substandard skills in flying the Nomad aircraft.

‘Fuad may have caused Gandhi to fly’

Interestingly, the GAF report also suggested that Fuad may have inadvertently caused Gandhi to still be eligible to fly.

The report noted that Sabah Air chief pilot M Nadan had initially found the pilot to be not ready to fly the Nomad plane safely for passenger flights, as Gandhi repeatedly failed to respond adequately to simulated emergencies during flight checks.

However, it said that after Fuad took office six weeks prior to the accident, several non-East Malaysian staff, including Nadan, had been laid off, and a "Captain Wahab" was made the airline's general manager.

Wahab and Gandhi were said to be former flatmates and good friends, according to the report.

The report cites Nadan as alleging that Wahab had removed Gandhi's last flight report from the latter's file.

Nadan had also accused Gandhi of removing reports from his file himself, while Wahab claimed that Nadan had victimised Gandhi.

"There is probably some truth in these statements of Nadan because a study of Ghandi's (sic) log book revealed that many more flight checks had been carried out on him than there were flight test reports in his file," the GAF report states.

Meanwhile, the GAF also found that Sabah Air was essentially "operating illegally" as its operating manual had not been approved by the Civil Aviation Department (CAD).

‘An accident was bound to happen’

However, the Australian team also found that the CAD had failed to completely fulfil their obligations as the certifying authority.

It said “an accident was bound to happen sooner or later” due to CAD and Sabah Air’s shortcomings.

In contrast to the Malaysian report claiming that Sabah Air never applied to the CAD for approval to operate the Nomad, the Australian report said Sabah Air did submit a draft of an operations manual for the aircraft in late-1975 as required by the CAD.

It said the draft manual contained inaccurate information and deviated from GAF’s flight manual in ways that would adversely affect the aircraft’s performance.

Based on an interview with another Sabah Air Nomad pilot, the Australian team also found that it is standard practice for the airline to “eyeball” the loading of the luggage rather than to weigh it and use a loading chart as stipulated in the flight manual.

“When questioned about using the loading charts in the flight manual, he (a Sabah Air Nomad pilot) said they did not use them because they were too difficult to understand,” the report said.

The report also noted that the aircraft’s toilet was removed and that the passenger compartment had been modified. Despite the changes affecting the aircraft’s weight distribution, these changes were not reflected in the aircraft’s loading chart or flight manual.

Loading charts are paperwork used to document and estimate the weight of an aircraft's passengers and cargo, its distribution, as well as the aircraft’s centre of gravity. The Malaysian report noted that Gandhi did not prepare a loading chart for the flight.

Both Malaysian and Australian reports concurred that the aircraft’s rear passenger compartment was overloaded, and this shifted the aircraft’s centre of gravity rearwards beyond the limits specified by GAF.

This gave the aircraft a tendency to tilt upwards which made it unstable, which was exacerbated when the aircraft extended its flaps for landing at Kota Kinabalu airport.

In the absence of a loading chart, the aircraft’s weight and weight distribution had been estimated based on the luggage recovered at the crash site.

Like the Malaysian report, the Australian report also rules out fire or sabotage as probable causes for the crash.

“It was possible by various means during the first few days to discount this theory (of sabotage).

“(UK Civil Aviation Authority airworthiness surveyor) R Williams’ thorough and painstaking examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any pre-crash malfunction or failure of any component or structure which would cause the aircraft to crash,” the report said.

Sabotage had been suspected due to the presence of many high-ranking Sabah politicians on the aircraft such as Fuad, and state ministers Salleh Sulong, Peter Mojuntin, and Chong Thien Vun. Also killed was Fuad’s eldest son Johari Stephens in the co-pilot’s seat.

The incident sparked many conspiracy theories, including allegations of sabotage and federal interference in state affairs.

Malaysia had kept the investigation report on the crash an official secret until Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced on April 5 that the report would be declassified.

The decision followed a court order on March 8 for the government to release the report by June 8, though the issue looked set to drag on further when the government appealed the decision.

Australia had previously refused to release its own report on the grounds that Malaysia had not released theirs.