Pilot 'had been planning dad's birthday'
IF CAPTAIN Tsu Way Ming, the pilot of MI 185, had wanted to commit suicide, he would not have chosen to do it two days before his father's birthday, said Justice Tan Lee Meng.
No evidence he downed plane, says Justice Tan.
He noted that the pilot, who gave up an air-force career to spend more time with his family, had been planning his father's birthday celebrations at the time of the crash.
Capt Tsu had financial and work-related problems, he said in his written judgment, but these were 'not serious enough to push him to take his own life and the lives of so many other persons'.
'Even if it is assumed for one moment that he wanted to commit suicide, it is unlikely that he would choose to distress his aged father by killing himself and so many other people just two days before his father's birthday celebrations,' he said.
Dismissing the lawsuit against SilkAir by the families of six crash victims, Justice Tan found that there was no evidence that Capt Tsu had deliberately downed the plane or recklessly taken it into a steep dive.
He also said there was no evidence the crash had been caused by mechanical failure or a sudden drop in cabin pressure.
Senior Counsel Michael Khoo, who represented the families, pointed out in the trial that, before the crash, Capt Tsu had twice committed reckless acts. Once, he made controversial S-turns prior to landing; the other time, he took off when one of the plane's engines did not have enough power.
But Justice Tan said yesterday that whatever 'inappropriate acts' the pilot might have committed in the past, 'he has never been accused of taking passengers on board an aircraft for a joyride or on a frolic of his own'.
Mr Khoo had said that competent pilots such as Capt Tsu and his first officer would have executed an emergency descent without difficulty unless they acted recklessly and caused the plane to crash.
Justice Tan disagreed. He noted that one of SilkAir's expert witnesses had said that while an emergency descent might be easy to execute 'from a textbook', it was different when a pilot faced a real threat to the aircraft.
The judge then concluded that there was no proof of recklessness or evidence that the crash was caused by the 'wilful misconduct' of Capt Tsu or his co-pilot.
Mr Philip Bass, a solicitor with Beaumont & Son which is representing SilkAir's insurers in a US lawsuit against Boeing, told The Straits Times that US courts 'will not be legally bound' by yesterday's decision although the judgment 'will be taken into consideration'.
This is the first lawsuit resulting from the crash to come to court. More than 20 others are pending in New York, California, Ohio and Delaware, in the US, against Boeing.