Nine people were killed and one was injured after a Philippine Air Force plane crashed in a residential area in Cotabato City before noon Thursday. Eight of the fatalities, including an air force general, were passengers of a Nomad plane that burst into flames after plowing across three houses at Virgo Subdivision, Rosary Heights 9, Cotabato City, officials told GMANews.TV. The other fatality – Inday Mondrano, in her sixties – died after a wall of one of the houses collapsed, Philippine National Police (PNP) Region 12 Senior Superintendent Felicisimo Khu said. Mondrano, whose remains were retrieved at 2:40 P,M., was visiting Sheila Gumicon at the ill-fated hous, Khu said. Gumicon, in her forties, was rushed to the Cotabato City hospital for treatment of a slight injury, the police official added. Residents of the other two damaged houses –owned by Gapor Camlian and Rogelio Daet – were unharmed. The crash took place at 11:37 A.M., Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Gerry Zamudio said. He refused to identify the passengers until their families shall have been notified. Cotabato city police chief Sr. Supt. Willie Dangane said Maj. Gen. Mario Butch Lacson, commander of the Air Force's 3rd Air Division, was among the passengers of the plane. He identified the other passengers as a certain Maj. Tacuboy; Capt. Ordoneo; 1st Lt. Valdez, the female pilot; 1st Lt. Lepae; Sgt. Lemara; Sgt. Mejia; and Sgt. Gosum. Eastern Mindanao command chief Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer said the aircraft came from Davao and had made a stopover in Cotabato City before proceeding to Zamboanga City. Civil Aviation Authority deputy director Ed Kapunan said the pilot informed authorities of engine trouble shortly after taking off. “About eight kilometers away after it took off, the pilot declared an emergency, then it crashed,” Kapunan said in a separate interview over radio dzBB. Kapunan said the pilot requested to go back to Cotabato City. But when aviation authorities gave her the landing clearance, the pilot replied that communication was fading and subsequently lost contact. Edgar Tampos, a Cotabato City resident, said he saw the plane crash a couple of houses away from his. “I thought it would crash on our house, but it tilted a little, and its wing hit a house that was about two houses away from ours,” Tampos said in an interview over QTV's news programBalitanghali. “After that, it exploded,” he said.
