KOTA KINABALU – Former Sabah chief minister Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee has questioned why the Malaysian government requested for Australian authorities to classify the report on the infamous Double-Six crash in the past.
He said the Australian report dated January 3, 1978, disclosed “the Malaysian authorities requested that the report be treated as confidential”.
“It is now on the Malaysian government to explain why Malaysia had requested the report to be classified in the first place,” he said in a statement today.
Yong also said the Malaysian Transport Ministry must explain why it previously told Parliament that the aircraft crashed due to overloading.
This contradicts another Malaysian report that noted the take-off weight was 8,065lbs (3,658kg), which was below the maximum take-off weight of 8500 lbs.
Missing information in Malaysian report
Yong also noted an irregularity between the Malaysian and Australian reports whereby the former found that the rear baggage area had 325lbs of luggage, while the latter claimed it was at 415lbs.
He said the 27.7% discrepancy needed to be explained.
Yong also pointed out that the report by the Australian Transport Department contained internal communications such as telegrams, memos, and some handwritten notes, whereas the Malaysian report contained mainly the investigators’ findings and conclusions.
“None of the internal communications among government officials (federal and Sabah) and Sabah Air was provided in the Malaysian report,” he said.
Yong said in view of this missing information, he believes that the government should release the records that include witness statements and evidence from an inquest conducted by a magistrate in Sabah months after the crash.
He said there should also be an explanation why the Nomad aircraft was allowed to take to the air when the Civil Aviation Department had not approved it for flying passengers at the time.
The Australian report contained a news report titled “Last moments of Nomad” by the Herald dated June 11, 1976 from Kuala Lumpur which noted “the Nomad plane crash that killed Sabah state chief minister (Tun) Mohamed Fuad (Stephens) occurred after the plane had been turned away on its first landing approach. It had to make way for another plane.”
Yong said this version of the final moments should have been explained in both reports.
He also said both country’s reports made no mention of the final moments before the ill-fated Nomad, with the registration number 9M-ATZ, took off from Labuan.
This includes Umno’s Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Tengku Hamzah’s statement in Kota Kinabalu in April 2010 that he and two others had disembarked from the plane to board another Kudat-bound Nomad numbered 9M-AUA, prior to the fatal crash.
The Malaysian report said that some of the luggage of passengers of Nomad 9M-AUA was found in the wreckage of the Nomad 9M-ATZ at Sembulan, Kota Kinabalu.
“This fact itself would require an investigation of what happened at Labuan Airport. For instance, who had loaded the non-passenger luggage to the Nomad 9M-ATZ?” asked Yong.
“The Malaysian report also stated that the Nomad 9M-ATZ had remained ‘in Labuan overnight’, having been flown to Labuan ‘by another (Sabah Air) pilot on the previous day.’ Was this pilot called to give evidence to the Investigation Committee?”
Yong reminded that the Australian report consists of two components – one compiled by the Transport Department, and another by Government Aircraft Factories (GAF), a commercial company under the Industry and Commerce Department.
He said it is important to note that GAF manufactured the Nomads bought by Sabah Air in 1975 and that there should be a distinction in role between the Australian Transport Department and GAF when reading the reports.
Australia declassified and released its report, a 52-page record that contains Australia’s investigation report by GAF investigators, last Wednesday (April 26).
This came after the Malaysian government declassified its investigation report and made it accessible to the public online on April 12. – The Vibes, April 29, 2023
