BI deports airline exec

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo ordered yesterday the deportation of an Australian who was chief mechanic of Laoag International Airlines, operator of the Fokker-27 plane that crashed into Manila Bay last Nov. 11.

However, Domingo said Jimmy Tan Teng Chui may not leave the country until he is cleared of "any administrative and criminal liabilities" in connection with the crash that killed 19 of the 34 people aboard.

Domingo said Tan, who was in charge of Laoag Air’s maintenance requirements, must get a clearance from the panel investigating the crash before he could leave the country.

Tan must also be cleared by the courts, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police, she added.

Lawyer Arvin Santos, head of the immigration bureau’s legal task force, said Tan was ordered deported after his lawyer asked the board of commissioners last Dec. 3 to allow his "self-deportation."

Tan was arrested for working without a permit days after the crash, along with Malaysian Paul Ng, chairman of Laoag Air.

Immigration officials said Tan and Ng were found to be gainfully employed in the country despite their lack of a work permit.

The two were also accused of allowing the operation and deployment of faulty, ill-maintained and decrepit aircraft, using "unregulated" facilities.

Tan and Ng were also found to have employed aliens who did not have the required visas and work permits to the prejudice of public safety and security.

Ng, who is married to a Filipina, has been released on bail.

Tan’s bail petition was denied "on the ground that he is an extreme flight risk." – With AFP report