The Task Force Bronco clarified Sunday in a media conference the fuselage of the OV-10 Bronco 630 that crashed recently in this city has not yet been found, and neither any of its two pilots.
The clarification was made by TFB chief Brig. Gen. Conrado Parra in the media conference held at the headquarters of the 570th Composite Tactical Wing following published articles in national dailies that claim the fuselage has been found and in it is the remains of one of the pilots.
“Contrary to news coming out, we have not found the wreckage yet and the pilots. As of now, the operation is still search and rescue,” he said, and not “search and retrieval” using all available assets of the operational units of the Armed Forces under the Western Command.
He explained they felt the need to clarify wrong news reports that are coming out for the sake of the family of the two pilots, and the public who have been following up the progress of the operation they are conducting.
“We do not know who these sources are, but we have not found the wreckage,” Parra said, adding the “significant findings” they earlier announced proved negative when dived and checked by expert frogmen of the Philippine Navy’s Special Warfare Action Group.
He also clarified that the search and rescue has never been called off by the TFB even when there was announcement of a new typhoon because the sea proved to be calm. But he said if the weather becomes unfavorable, they will temporarily “hold it” as the safety of their personnel is also important.
No deadline has been set as to when the search and rescue will be called off, according to Parra.
He said their mission is to remain looking for pilots Maj. Jonathan Ybanez and 1st Lt. Abner Nacion, and the fuselage which is important to an investigation they will conduct.
The head of the TFB did not also offer theories as to why the OV-10 Bronco 630 crashed when asked by the media.
“Like what I have said, we cannot come out with any theory; not unless we are able to conduct an investigation. We have been getting opinions as to why it crashed, but those cannot complete any conclusion,” he said.
“Please bear with us, we are prioritizing the operation before the investigation about what really happened,” Parra told the press.
His statement was despite the fact of his own disclosure that before the OV-10 Bronco 630 crash, one of its pilots were able to make communication to inform that a problem had caused its RPM (revolution per minute) to stuck up while trying to make a landing 7 nautical miles on final approach to the runway.
The RPM “is a measure of the frequency of rotation. It annotates the number of turns completed in one minute around a fixed axis. It is used as a measure of rotational speed of a mechanical component.”
It also makes vertical flight safe, practical and reliable.
But Parra cautioned that a stocked up RPM may not necessarily cause the crash.
It is better, he said, to wait for the result of the investigation.
“I can only say that there was communication from the pilots that the RPM of OV-10 630 got stuck up. But like I said, this is speculative. We do not want to make any preemptive statement pending investigation,” he said.
As of this writing, Parra said they are trying to borrow a remotely operated vehicle from the Malampaya Natural Gas Project (MNGP) to aid in the search.
Through the Joint Task Force Malampaya and the upper level of the AFP, he said, the machine might arrived in Puerto Princesa on Tuesday.
The equipment, commonly referred to as ROV, is “a tethered underwater vehicle” used in deep-water industries such as offshore hydrocarbon extraction. It is “unoccupied and highly maneuverable and operated by a person aboard a vessel.”
While in the process of borrowing the ROV, Parra Jr. said the Dept. of Science and Technology has allowed the TFB the use of its underwater camera to look for the missing pilots and the fuselage in two suspected areas picked up by their sonar search.
Unfortunately, SWAG divers came up with negative findings on the two locations within the 5.9 nautical mile radius of the search area just off the
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=539823
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