ATO won't let old pilots fly Estrada

The Air Transportation Office (ATO) prevented President Estrada from using a flashy Lear jet for his flight to Bangkok on Friday night because the designated cockpit crew was overaged.

ATO chief Jake Ortega said he could not allow 68-year-old pilot Jose Gonzales and his 65-year-old co-pilot to take the Chief Executive to Thailand to attend the 10th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as well as join the UN-Asean roundtable discussions.

"You can fire me, Mr. President," Ortega said. "But I cannot allow you to risk your life by taking that private jet because the two pilots assigned to fly the plane are more than 60 years old."

Safety experts in the aviation industry said commercial pilots, upon reaching the age of 60, are considered retired. According to Ortega, the Lear jet pilots had also failed to undergo their quarterly proficiency tests.

Mr. Estrada, together with Trade Secretary Mar Roxas, Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Ramon Cardenas, San Miguel Corp. board chairman Ramon Ang and businessman Jaime Dichavez, was supposed to take the seven-seater plane owned by his friend, businessman Eduardo Cojuangco.

However, minutes before the President and his party were to have boarded the plane, Ortega ordered the jet grounded.

"Imagine, the ATO prevented the President's plane from taking off because he has two overaged pilots," guffawed Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon Jr., who also flew to Bangkok but via Thai Airways.

Ortega said he was able to convince the President to take a Philippine Airlines Airbus 330 instead.

He told reporters later that he refused to take any chances with the safety of the President.

"If the President is to fly anywhere, the plane and all its crew must be 100 percent efficient and zero percent deficient," he said.

Mr. Estrada told The STAR that he would not reverse the better-informed decisions of authorities when it comes to air safety. -- With Marichu Villanueva