CAAP confirms no crash, all planes accounted for

By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Following eyewitness accounts from Escalante City, Toboso, Moises Padilla, and La Castellana reporting a low-flying aircraft yesterday, along with supposed sightings from neighboring Cebu, reports surfaced claiming the aircraft in question disappeared in Moises Padilla’s Barangay Quintin Remo, located in a mountainous area of the town.

In response, municipal police and the local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office dispatched personnel to the assumed crash site.

However, officials were unable to locate any wreckage.

A plane crash was later ruled out after the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) and air traffic controllers at the Bacolod-Silay Airport accounted for all aircraft in the area. Incidentally, CAAP confirmed, at the time of the incident, there was a military exercise being conducted by the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and the US Air Force (USAF).

CAAP presented PAF and USAF flight plans, which showed they scheduled exercises with a C-130 Hercules military transport plane from September 5 to 26. The said flights were expected to be conducted at a low-altitude, flying at 5,000 feet.

The remaining details of the said flight, meanwhile, are tagged as “highly-confidential.”/DGB, WDJ