A CHANGE of schedule and the pilot’s wish to please the passengers by rushing from Betong to Kuching in weather that was said to be raining, with storm and strong winds, could have led a chartered helicopter to  crash into Batang Lupar on May 5 last year.

The Transport Ministry’s Air Accident Investigation Bureau came to the conclusion in its final report on the crash that was released yesterday.

All on board were killed in the accident. They were former deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Noriah Kasnon, her husband, Asmuni Abdullah; ministry secretary-general Dr Sundaran Annamalai; Kuala Kangsar MP and Malaysian Palm Oil Board chairman Wan Mohammad Khairil Anuar Wan Ahmad; Noriah’s bodyguard, Ahmad Sobri Harun; and pilot Rudolf Rex Ragas.

Eurocopter AS350B3e Ecureil (squirrel) helicopter, chartered by Sarawak government-linked Hornbill Skyways from GCA Skyline Aviation of the Philippines, had taken off with six passenger from the Kuching International Airport at 9.30am for Bungin, a rural settlement in Betong.

After dropping the passengers off, Ragas was to fly to the small town of Spaoh to pick up three passengers and fly them back to Kuching.

However there was a change of plan and he was asked to fly from Spaoh to Betong instead to pick up Noriah and her entourage, who were there attending an event hosted by Noriah’s ex boss in the ministry, Douglas Uggah.

Ragas did not leave Spaoh for Betong until about 4pm. Due to his unfamiliarity with the landing point in Betong, an state government official was on board to help the pilot identify the point at the Betong resthouse.

When he landed in Betong, while the engine was till running and the rotor turning, Noriah and her entourage boarded the flight to Kuching.

They took off at 4.12pm.

It is believed Ragas “was under tremendous stress prior to the crash”  to get his VIP passengers back in Kuching, one of which had to catch a connecting flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

The reported noted that all passengers on board had return tickets to fly back to Kuala Lumpur on May 6 except for one, who was due to return on flight MH2529 at 9.35pm on the same day.

The report stated since Ragas “was not familiar with the terrain and the severity of the weather during the flight”, he could not decide to fly an alternate route as five other Hornbill Skyways pilots flying in the same area did”.

It is also believed that he could have navigated using GPS (global positioning system) information for the direct route to Simunjan, which was the reporting point for VFR (visual flight rated) flight to enter Kuching control through VFR Lane 4.

However, before he could reach Simunjan at 4.20pm, Lingga was hit by squalls and a thunderstorm, satellite pictures shows.

“He could have flown into the rain directly to Simunjan,” the report stated.

The last radio call Ragas made to Kuching Information was shortly after takeoff at 4.15pm.

As the helicopter was not fitted with a data flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder to assist in the crash investigation, accident investigators came to the conclusion that the helicopter was flying fast, into “poor weather condition with low forward visibility, lack of a visual horizon as a reference and flying low and fast over a vast expense of water devoid of features which may provide visual orientation cues” and straight into the river.

The report stated that an examination of the bodies indicated that “all body injuries were due to extreme impact” and bone fractures were “consistent with high velocity impact”.

By flying into the storm, crash investigators believed the 58 year-old pilot could also have experienced “spatial disorientation” – a term to define the inability of a pilot to correctly interpret aircraft attitude, altitude or airspeed in relation to the Earth or other points of reference.

The investigators stated that conditions existed that pointed towards spatial disorientation as a probable cause of the accident.

“Spatial disorientation it is a common problem and it has been estimated that the chance of a pilot experiencing SD during their career is in the order of 90 to 100%.

“Statistics show that SD could be the cause of 5% to 10% of all general aviation accidents – 90% of which are fatal,” the report stated.

The six-man investigation team headed by Captain Yahya Abdul Rahman was assisted by BEA, France and the Aircraft Accident and Inquiry Investigation Board (AAIIB) of The Philippines.

The report concluded that the most probable cause of the accident was “the inability of the pilot to use all available information to make the correct decision, so as not to make the flight susceptible to disorientation when flying over water at low altitude in bad weather with limited visibility”. – June 9, 2017.