Cessna wreckage found

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines — After 44 days of searching, joint rescue teams finally found yesterday morning the wreckage of a Cessna 206 airplane that slammed into the Sierra Madre mountains in Isabela and confirmed there were no survivors.

“Between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m., a group of searchers from the Maconacon MDRRMO found the wreckage of the missing Cessna plane that we have been looking for in the past 44 days,” lawyer Watu Foronda, head of the Isabela Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO), said in a virtual press briefing.

“Sadly, there were no survivors. We delayed this briefing until all the relatives of the passengers and the pilots have been informed,” added Foronda about the six passengers of what was supposed to be a 30-minute flight from Cauayan to the Maconacon Airport when it went missing on Jan. 25.

The PDRRMO said the victims were found identifiable even if one was decapitated. Clothes, some of them hanging atop trees, and torn parts of the airplane were scattered all over the crash site.

Foronda said the remains of the victims will be taken down from the crash site in Barangay Ditarun, Divilacan town, as soon as possible – a task that may take three days to complete.

“We already have a clearance from the crime lab and SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operations of the police to move the bodies); but the wreckage has to be kept secured, pending an investigation to be conducted by the CAAP (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines),” Foronda, speaking partly in Filipino, said.

Foronda said search and rescue operations will now shift to retrieval, noting that weather and terrain will still be a challenge for the team tasked to bring the bodies down.

Engineer Ezekiel Chavez, also of the Isabela PDRRMO, said the retrieval team left yesterday and is expected to reach the crash site today.

Chavez said there were two previous attempts to reach the area, but high and rough river waters prevented searchers from proceeding.

He noted there is “steep and slippery terrain” as well as “unfavorable weather in the Sierra Madre.”

Foronda said some 500 people all worked together during the 44-day search, including local disaster response teams, volunteer groups, the Philippine Army’s 59th Infantry Battalion, the police, firefighters, and even coast guard rescuers.

Later yesterday afternoon, the Philippine Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Center confirmed the finding of the wreckage of the Cessna 206 aircraft with registry number RP-C 1174.

CAAP spokesman Eric Apolonio, meanwhile, kept mum on the fate of the six passengers, declining to release any information the CAAP considered confidential under the Data Privacy Act.

But the CAAP confirmed its Aircraft Accident Investigation and Inquiry Board will now proceed with its probe into the crash. –  Artemio Dumlao, Ralph Edwin Villanueva, Rudy Santos