KOTA KINABALU, April 13 — The federal government is aware of the sentiments of the “inconclusive” declassified report of the “Double Six” plane crash, including the call for the Australian authorities, who manufactured the Nomad aircraft, to release the forensic report on the crash, Ewon Benedick said today.
The entrepreneur development and cooperatives minister said that he felt the pain and emotions of Sabahans who found that the much-anticipated report did not shed any light or give answers to questions surrounding the crash.
“I can understand how the victims’ families are feeling after reading this report. There are still a lot of questions.
“I will bring this up to the federal government for discussion by the Cabinet. Even though they were also part of the investigation that conducted this report, but we do hope there will be more information they can provide,” said Ewon, adding that there would be a diplomatic process to follow.
Ewon was responding to the family of the late Datuk Peter Mojuntin, who was housing and local government minister when he died in the plane crash with 10 others.
His eldest son, Datuk Donald Mojuntin, said that the report had failed to answer the many questions and conspiracy theories that had arisen over the last 47 years, including why such an “innocent” report had been classified as confidential under the Official Secrets Act all these years.
Donald said that the report, which pointed to possible pilot error and technical issues, was inconclusive and “disappointing”, offering no closure to the victims’ families and Sabahans who believe that the plane crash had severely altered the direction of the state.
The June 6, 1976 flight took off from Labuan before crashing in Sembulan, here. Everyone onboard was killed, including the then chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens, three Cabinet ministers and one assistant minister. The lack of transparency over the report then had given rise to many political conspiracies over the years.
The report was made public yesterday but drew criticism and confusion as it was deemed mostly harmless, and many, including other politicians, Donald and the Stephens family, called for the Australian government to release its portion of the investigation.
“In some ways, this report has prolonged the agony for us who have been waiting for answers all these years. For instance, there were reports of a loud explosion before the plane crashed, and these were not mentioned in the report.
“The black box and the pilot logs were also not mentioned. We need a proper forensic report on the plane wreckage,” said Donald.
He said that the government had done the right thing by releasing the report after 47 years.
“Please continue to do the right thing by keeping on probing deeper. Get the Australian government to also declassify its report. After all, an accident of this magnitude needs some answers,” he said.
Earlier, Ewon had presented Peter’s widow Datin Nancy Mary Mobijohn with an official copy of the report on behalf of the government.
Nancy herself said that she was not satisfied with the report, but said that after so long, she did not expect anything new.
“At first, I felt that I would finally get some answers after waiting for so long. But it is the same old bedtime story. Nothing new,” she said.
