by Captain Elmo Jayawardena

Fifty years ago this year, on December 4, 1974, a DC-8 aircraft belonging to the Dutch carrier, Martinair, crashed into the Anjimalai mountain range also known as the Seven Virgins. The accident happened around 1015 PM and the location was in the vicinity of Maskeliya. This was the worst air disaster that had taken place in Sri Lanka. As many as 191 lives were lost with no survivors. That is how the night of December 4 became a sad one to remember.

Corona curfews give us time to read and in my isolation at home I have been pulling out ‘bucket-listed’ stories to peruse. Most articles I browsed through about the Martinair DC-8 crash had covered all aspects of this horrible disaster. Adequate details were available to re-construct the story and come to reasonable conclusions of what may have happened.

We all know the easy way out of most aeroplane crashes has been the first-choice of the hit-parade – PILOT ERROR. The captain is buried beneath the Seven Virgins hills in shamed silence. So is his First Officer and the Flight Engineer. The case is closed and forgotten. I have no defense to offer on behalf of the crew to give even a shallow coating of an excuse. But! There is a ‘BUT’ I need to mention here.

On one side we have technology inundated with fancy aviation jargon. Add to that a half-burnt Black Box and communication tapes between the pilot and the controller. Plus, all the details of the flying records of the crew and what they have done and what they have not done. Then comes a hundred titbits of aeronautical specifics that act as tinsel to an investigation.

All that is fine, valid to be used at round table conferences where aviation-related head umpires and leg umpires, third umpires plus match referees discuss and make decisions taking all the time in the world. It is not the same for the Captain and his crew. No doubt they are professionally competent aircrew. Yet, some decisions to be made in an aeroplane are instant. You win some and you lose some and the ones you lose may have devastating repercussions.

Worst is you may not even be living to tell your side of the story. A few seconds make the difference between life and death. In such calamitous situations we tend to forget that the most lethal ingredient in an aviation disaster is – the human factor.

The Captain is not an infallible demi-god who jumped off Mount Olympus and sat in the cockpit of his aeroplane. He is human and so are his crew. They are no different to the ordinary you and me. I have been a Captain for a considerable number of years. I have made many mistakes flying aeroplanes. I humbly say I was lucky I escaped without an accident. There is nothing courageous or brilliant about that, it is simply the way fate rolled the dice. Such would be the story of any Captain. Admitted or not, it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The scales of justice in an aviation accident investigation is handled by competent authorities. In the case of the Martinair DC-8 crash there were three Civil Aviation Departments associated with the inquiry. Sri Lanka, The Netherlands, and Indonesia. Plus, there would have been the McDonnell Douglas Company that built the aeroplane and insurance companies that were present to protect their dollar.

There had been whispers about the Doppler system in this aeroplane having errors which resulted in inaccuracies in the ‘distance to go’. It was also said that the crew were not informed of this. There is nothing to substantiate such statements and as such, it is best that I leave them out and keep them buried along with the aeroplane. I also read that the co-pilot had a traumatic childhood and that could have affected his behavior when approaching to land. I make no comment on such absurdities.

Let me now take you to the story of the DC 8 that crashed into the Seven Virgins mountain range. The accident tragically killed 191 innocent people (182 passengers plus nine crew). It sure is a terrible night to remember.

The flight was from Surabaya, Java, to Jeddah via Colombo which was a re-fueling stop. This was Muslim pilgrimage time to Mecca for the Haj. Devotees came from all parts of the world. Some flew in on private jets but most travelled on chartered aeroplanes. The flight that took off from Surabaya was a DC-8 55CF aeroplane owned by Martinair of The Netherlands which had been leased by Garuda Indonesia to fly the Haj charters.

In command was Capt Hendrik Lamme, 58 years old, a very experienced pilot who had flown 27,000 plus flying hours of which 4,000 were on DC-8s. The First Officer Robert Blomsma had 2,480 hours and was new on the DC-8 type with 47 hours. The third crew member, the flight engineer was Johannes Wijnands who had flown 3,000 hours on DC-8 type aeroplanes. Back in the cabin there were six crew members, four were Dutch and two from Indonesia. The aircraft had a Dutch registration of PH-MBH and was less than 10 years old. The flight plan filed call-sign for the flight was MP 138.

Here I must explain to the reader something about the navigational instruments that the aeroplane had. I want to make it as simple as possible for a non-aviator to understand.

The route from Surabaya to Sri Lanka is mostly oceanic. It starts with an airway called Red-61 and extends on a North-Westerly direction till it reaches the Sri Lankan Flight Information Region (FIR – 92 East longitude) and follows route Golf-462 to cross the coast at a way point located over Yala. This reporting point unfortunately had no Radio Aid for the pilots to cross-check their navigation when flying overhead.

The primary navigation system that was in use by Martinair was called Doppler. This was operated worldwide by many airlines and during that era it was a primary navigational aid for jet aeroplanes flying long haul sectors. Doppler gave the pilots a digital reading of the distance to go to the way point it was heading to. However, Doppler system was not overly accurate when flying over water for a long period and had to be updated over a radio beacon or a known geographical position (maybe a river or town) to maintain its accuracy. Flight MP 138’s route initially had radio beacons to update the Doppler. But the final ocean crossing before coast of Sri Lanka had no radio beacon for the crew to update the Doppler position. That was a long leg, too long to fly without an update.

The last point the DC-8 could have done a navigational cross-check would have been at a way point closer to Banda Archi airport which was about 135 miles right of their track. From there Capt. Lamme still had to fly close to two hours to reach the coast of Sri Lanka. He was navigating now purely by rudimentary ‘dead-reckoning’ and Doppler ‘distance to go’ readouts without any cross-check to update his position.

Flight MP138 crossed the FIR at 8.27 pm local time – six minutes earlier than the estimate. Calculating its speed by distance between two way points and time taken, the ground speed would be 478. That is at eight miles a minute. Six minutes would be almost 50 miles. The FIR was about 850 miles from the Sri Lankan coastal way point. Maybe Capt. Lamme and his crew were getting a wrong ‘distance to go’ reading from their Doppler. It is difficult to fathom whether it was because of the reported fault in this particular aeroplane Doppler or it was because of a very long sea track flown without an update. It could even have been both.

Already there had been a six minute (50 miles) correction made. Was it correct or was it a Doppler error? There was no way to cross check and update. If it was a Doppler fault that could have been the cause the Martinair DC-8 flew all the way to its death in Maskeliya.

Flight MP 138 first contacted Colombo Air Traffic Control located at Ratmalana at 9.52 PM and reported 130 miles out at 35,000 ft. They were only going by the Doppler. The controller answered ‘MP-138 clear descend 10,000 when ready and call 50 miles from Katunayake.” When Capt. Lamme commenced his descent by what his Doppler reading displayed his actual position would have been 50 miles east of where he thought he was. Unfortunately, Katunayake Airport at that time did not have Approach Radar nor a Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) which would have digitally told the pilot exactly how far he was from the airfield.

Few minutes later the DC-8 called “50 miles” and was cleared to 6000 and handed over to Colombo Approach Control at Katunayake. The First Officer who was doing the radio called Colombo Approach at 10.08 PM and reported he was ‘one four” (14) miles from the Katunayake airport passing 7,000 for 6,000. Approach Control had no Radar to see him. The controller had to go purely by the MP 138’s estimate of 14 miles from the airfield. He cleared MP 138 to 2,000 ft and told him to call “field in sight” or overhead the KAT radio beacon.

“Roger, cleared 2,000, to KAT or field in sight.” This was at 1010 by the first Officer.

That sadly was the last communication.

On descent the DC-8 hit the fifth of the Seven Virgins mountains at a height of 4,354 feet. The impact place was about 65 miles from Katunayake. When F/O Blomsma reported 14 miles from the airport, he was most certainly giving the distance from the cockpit Doppler. He had no other instrument to read from other than a possible error-tainted Doppler. If you add 14 miles to the error of 50 miles on the Doppler the answer is 64. Give or take a few miles for the random calculation I am doing and then perhaps the 64 coincides with the distance from Katunayake to where the crash occurred in the Anjimalai hills.

The only other explanation for Capt. Lamme to initiate an early descent could have been a wrongly interpreted weather radar sighting of the eastern coast. These were black and white radar displays and it is possible that a low cloud could have been mistaken for the coast maybe 50 miles before ALGET.

I, in no way can say what I have written is the gospel truth. I have no crystal-clear facts to ponder on. It is just my opinion I am stating. I do have some knowledge on Doppler matters as I have flown these routes in similar aeroplanes using Doppler navigation. Many opinions are expressed by journalists about this disaster. How true such inferences are, is another side of the coin. I was greatly assisted by Sri Lankan Air Traffic Controllers and communication officers, some who handled MP 138 arrival. I am deeply grateful for their first-hand information.

The possibility remains that Capt. Lamme may have commenced his descent approximately 50 miles before the planned point to leave 35,000.

The aeroplane crashed, there were many mitigating factors that left room and would have contributed to human error. Capt. Hendrik Lamme was guilty of being a human being.

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Today people driving past Norton Bridge town see a strange sight. A structure displaying a large tyre. It is a wheel from the DC-8 that crashed in the Seven Virgins mountains. It could be all that is left of that magnificent aeroplane owned and flown by the Dutch. If one’s interest is kindled, on the road from Norton Bridge to Maskeliya there is a place where one should stop. A plaque of remembrance is there, erected in memory of those who are buried around this place at the foot of this hill. The Martinair crew and the Indonesian pilgrims who died on the slopes of the mountain were buried in a common grave by the roadside. People say flowers do get placed off and on at the memorial. In remembrance of who we know but by whom is a question mark?

Up in the mountain is the main memorial, a stone pillar-like monument erected at the actual crash site. Wind-swept and rain-soaked it stands in its forgotten loneliness. Perhaps it whispers its sadness amidst the Seven Virgins mountain range. The column had been erected in remembrance of the 191 innocent people who died there on a sorrowful December night, a long time ago.

(Elmojay1@gmail.com)