PETALING JAYA, Sept 13 — The failure of pilot Captain Clifford Fournier to conduct a detailed assessment of a Dauphin helicopter after it made a rough landing at a football field in Muadzam Shah, Pahang, last year, had contributed to the aircraft crashing at a rubber tree plantation in Semenyih.
The crash on April 4, had killed Rompin MP Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis and five others, including the pilot.
A final report on the crash released by the Malaysia Air Accident Investigation Bureau on Friday, found Fournier had failed to inspect an excessive oil leak and damages to other parts of the helicopter after the rough landing, but instead continued to fly to Subang Airport.
“The pilot was seen by a witness to have exited the helicopter and accompanied a disembarked passenger (Bukit Ibam assemblyman Datuk Wan Kadri Wan Mahusain) clear of the main rotor area,” the report said.
“However, he (Fournier) did not carry out any inspection of the helicopter.”
The Solid State Combination Cockpit Voice and Flight Data Recorder, gathered approximately 18 hours after the accident, revealed the left landing gear had sunk to approximately 51cm deep into the soft ground (after the rough landing), causing the helicopter to tilt more than 13 degrees to the left.
“The left horizontal stabiliser vertical fin and the tail section below the tail rotor fenestron had impacted the ground causing some damage to the inboard root of the left horizontal stabiliser,” the report said.
Although the official cause of the accident was due to the separation of the left horizontal stabiliser, other factors that contributed to the crash were the unplanned landing, excessive loads on the fractured left horizontal stabiliser caused by a descending high cruising speed, and passenger’s intervention, which might have created peer pressure for the pilot to rush flying home.
The flight, which was initially carrying seven, including Fournier, was en route from Pekan to Muadzam Shah when one of the passengers suggested a change in the flight path to Subang Airport, due to the bad weather condition.
The pilot, however, had to make an “unplanned landing” in the football field as a passenger requested to disembark there.
The other victims were Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s principal private secretary Datuk Seri Azlin Alias, operations assistant Aidana Baizieva, Jamaluddin’s bodyguard Razakan Seran and businessman Datuk Tan Huat Seang.
The report stated the pilot was licensed to fly a helicopter and the helicopter maintenance contract with Airbus Helicopter was properly carried out as per the maintenance programme.
