In command of the flight was Captain Paulo Justo. His co-pilot was First Officer Erwin Golla. There were five crew members and 94 Filipino passengers, including five children. Five passengers were from Australia, Austria, Japan, Switzerland[2] and Canada. Additionally, a surgeon on a medical mission was from the United States, totaling 104 passengers.[3]
Accident
The plane left Manila at 01:00 GMT and was scheduled to arrive at 03:03 GMT in Cagayan de Oro. The plane made a stopover at Tacloban at 02:20 GMT, though sources differ about whether it was a scheduled or unscheduled stop.[3][4] According to one source, the flight made an unscheduled stop at Tacloban to deliver a needed airplane tire for another Cebu Pacific aircraft in Tacloban.[5] The last contact was 15 minutes before the plane was due to land, with the airport's ATC. In that transmission, the pilot said he was 68 kilometers (42 mi; 37 nmi) from the airport and was starting to descend. There was no indication that the plane was in trouble. The plane crashed 45 kilometers (28 mi; 24 nmi) away from the airport.[3]
Cause
The cause of the crash is still a source of controversy in the Philippines. Colonel Jacinto Ligot was the chief of the Philippine Air Force rescue team, which faced difficulties due to the deep ravines and dense vegetation on the slopes of the mountain. The pilots were flying visually, not instrumentally, when the plane vanished from radar.[2] While the skies were clear at the airport, the mountains may have been covered by fog. Chief of Staff General Clemente Mariano speculated that the plane "almost cleared the top of the mountain, but it may have suffered a down-draft, causing it to hit the mountain."[3]Jesus Dureza, the crisis manager during the rescue and retrieval operations, said he found out the Air Transportation Office maps used by the pilots listed the elevation of Mt. Sumagaya at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) above sea level, while the mountain actually is 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above sea level. This error might have misled the pilots to believe that they were clear of terrain, while in fact they were flying dangerously low. The ATO, on the other hand, pointed out in its official report deficiencies in the training of the pilots.[6]
