Plea vs ATO crash probe junked

The Court of Appeals (CA) has dismissed the petition of the brother of North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol who sought to stop the Air Transportation Office (ATO) from investigating the April 19 crash of Air Philippines Flight 541 that killed 131 passengers and crew members in Davao City.

The appellate court ruled that the regional trial courts (RTCs) have jurisdiction over the petition of Superintendent Patricio Piñol, police chief of Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, who lost his physician-wife Josephine, 38, and children Jara Patrice, 7, and Paul Andre, 4, in the country's worst air disaster.

The two-page resolution of the CA's Seventh Division was penned by Justice Buenaventura Guerrero and concurred in by Justices Hilario Aquino and Mercedes Gozo-Dadole.

Piñol asked the CA last April 26 not to allow the ATO to get transcripts of the plane's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR), claiming that the agency, in earlier pronouncements, had exonerated Air Philippines from any criminal liability for the crash.

Among the reasons Piñol cited were ATO's premature declaration, barely an hour after the April 19 crash, that it was caused by "pilot error," or possibly by "an explosion of a bomb planted by terrorists."

Piñol also accused the ATO of having concealed the United States' request for a recall of all Boeing 737-200 aircraft.

Moves to inhibit the ATO from investigating the crash gained ground after it was alleged that a female "inexperienced trainee" was the one who gave instructions to Flight 541 pilot Estraton Catipay to abort landing on the Davao International Airport because a Philippine Airlines plane was still on the runway.

"The foregoing facts are clear and desperate attempts of both public (ATO and Department of Transportation and Communications) and private respondents to clear (Air Philippines) from any responsibility," Piñol stated in his petition.

President Estrada has created an independent panel, composed mostly of veteran pilots from the Philippine Air Force, to investigate the air disaster. The panel, however, has yet to release its findings.