CHAPTER 3 – TERRORISM BY PROXY
Shirley Slade in 1943, at age 22. Elizabeth Gardner in 1943, at age 22.
05:30 (Philippines Time)
Friday, November 1, 1996 ‘C’
Apartment building, City of Pasay (southern suburbs of Metro Manila)
Southern part of the island of Luzon, Philippines Archipelago
The buzzing of her alarm clock woke up Shirley Slade in her third-floor apartment unit, in Pasay. Stretching out a bit in bed in order to fully wake up, the 75-year-old American woman got out of bed and went to her small kitchen, where she started brewing a cup of strong coffee. Anyone seeing her would actually have given her a maximum age of around fifty and would have given her extra points for a body that was apparently still healthy and strong. For that, she could thank a true miracle which happened to her and to eight other women eleven years ago, at the Vandenberg United States Space Corps Base. As old veterans of the 99th Air Wing, also known as the ‘Fifinellas’, Shirley and the others had been attending the retirement from military service ceremony of their old wartime commander, Ingrid Dows. Then, Ingrid had led the nine women to a deserted office, where Archangel Michael had appeared to them and had rejuvenated all of them by over twenty years, giving the veteran women pilots a brand-new lease on life. On top of making them look much younger than their actual age, that miracle had also made their various ailments disappear and had given them a strong resistance to diseases, plus a perfect eyesight. Shirley, whose husband had died years before that and whose two children were fully grown up and had left the family home in order to live their own lives, had then found herself able to resume what she had always loved to do: flying. However, the old prejudices in the United States about the so-called ‘proper role’ of women had made it next to impossible to find a job as a commercial pilot, with the airlines using her official age of 64 at the time to refuse to employ her. Finally, disgusted by that misogyny and pettiness, Shirley and the other rejuvenated female veteran combat pilots had collectively decided to try their luck in a place where the women of the Fifinellas were nearly venerated because of their role in liberating much of the Southeast Pacific from the grip of the Japanese invader during World War 2: the Philippines. There, their requests for employment as pilots had been looked at with much more sympathy than in the United States and they had been quickly hired by a number of the local Filipina airlines, who also fully appreciated their vast flying experience, which numbered in the many thousands of hours flown in a number of wars and at the commands of various high-performance aircraft. With her abilities as a pilot still at their best, Shirley had been working now for over nine years for the Air Philippines airline, which specialized in regional routes around the vast Filipina archipelago and also flew some charter flights on a regular basis. Having been based in the Philippines during World War 2 and the Korean War, Shirley, like her Fifinella comrades, already knew well the lay of the country and the particularities of its tropical climate, making them even more appreciated by their Filipino employers. Besides, Shirley genuinely liked to live and work with the Filipino people. Her original, rough knowledge from wartime of Tagalog, the local language, had now become a fluent one, on top of learning Cebuano, another important local language.
Taking a fresh shower after eating a frugal breakfast and drinking her coffee, Shirley then put on her airline uniform, which consisted of a white long-sleeved shirt with dark blue tie and a dark blue vest and pair of trousers. Normal shoes rather than high-heel shoes and a flight cap completed her uniform. Looking at herself in a long mirror, Shirly smiled with pride while adjusting the four rows of military medal ribbons pinned over her vest’s left chest pocket and her pilot’s wings. In over thirty years of flying with the United States Air Force, Shirley had fought in a total of six wars, many of them at the side of Ingrid Dows, earning many valor medals in the process, the highest being the Distinguished Service Cross. When she had finally retired, she had done so with the rank of colonel, having commanded a whole fighter wing. Now, she may be only an ordinary commercial airline pilot, but she could confidently say that her life had been a well-filled one.
Before going to fetch the small suitcase she always kept ready and which contained a spare uniform and some extra clothes and hygiene articles, Shirley put around her ankles the leather holster holding her compact Smith & Wesson snub-nosed, five-shot .38 Special revolver, plus another holster holding five spare rounds, then covered both holsters with the bottom of her trousers. She genuinely liked living in the Philippines but she was not naïve and fully realized the fact that the country was plagued by both high crime rates and widespread corruption of officials and police officers. She however possessed the proper possession and carrying permits for her revolver. Now fully ready for work, Shirley grabbed the handle of her suitcase and left her apartment, carefully locking it before going to the door of the next apartment and knocking lightly on it. Elizabeth Gardner, a Fifinella comrade and long-time friend answered nearly at once, opening her door and revealing the fact that she was in her Air Philippines pilot’s uniform.
‘’Ready to go, Libby?’’ asked Shirley, using the old nickname her friend had earned decades ago.
‘’Yup! Time to roll!’’
With Elizabeth also dragging a suitcase behind her, the two mature women went down to the ground lobby of their building, coming out of it and into the street, which was already fairly full of vehicle traffic. They both had their own cars but, since the airport was so close to their residence, they instead flagged down a jeepney, a colorful sort of minibus built out of an old jeep frame and which was a very popular means of public transportation in the Philippines. Jumping in it via its open rear and paying the comptroller sitting in the back, Shirley and Elizabeth then sat on one of the bench seats after informing the driver about their intended destination. The other passengers of the jeepney smiled to them, with one old man complimenting them for wearing the ribbon of the Philippines Liberation Medal, to which both women respectfully bowed their heads to him.
Less than fifteen minutes later, the jeepney dropped them and a few more passengers at the entrance of Terminal 4, also called the Old Terminal, of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Still dragging their suitcases behind them, Shirley and Elizabeth walked down the main concourse of the terminal and passed a gate reserved for the flying personnel, then proceeded to the operations office of the Air Philippines company, which specialized in domestic and charter flights. Once in the operations office, Shirley addressed in Tagalog a mature Filipino man standing behind the service counter while she approached it.
‘’Good morning, Manuel! What do you have for us today?’’
Manuel Redolo, a slightly overweight man with a jovial face, smiled in return and pointed at the big map fixed to the wall behind him.
‘’Something that is perfectly suited to your Convair 800, Shirley: our Manila – Davao – Jolo – Sanga Sanga and back route. Since we opened that route with our new Convair 800s, the ridership has augmented nearly exponentially, thanks mostly to how economical to use the Convair 800 is, which has allowed us to offer low airfares.’’
Both Shirley and Elizabeth nodded in agreement at that: the Convair 800 was indeed an excellent and economical short to medium haul aircraft which had been evolved from the highly successful Convair C-80 military transport. A 156-seat airliner also able to carry up to twelve tons of cargo in standard pallets or containers, it was a very agile aircraft propelled by three powerful turboprop engines, which gave it some outstanding short takeoff and landing capabilities. Bought some two years ago, the two Convair-800-100 acquired by Air Philippines had quickly proven to be the ideal planes for short routes to airports with short runways and minimal ground support infrastructures. One of those airports, the Bantayan Airport in Cebu, had in fact zero ground support facilities and no fuel, on top of having a measly 1,200-meter-long runway. What was best about the Convair 800 for both Shirley and Elizabeth were its outstanding agility, speed (for a turboprop aircraft) and STOL{1} performances, which reminded them of the combat aircraft they had flown around the Pacific during World War 2. Despite its respectable size, which compared to that of many medium jet airliners, the Convair 800 was a pure joy to fly and could give to its pilots…and passengers, some strong sensations indeed.
‘’That will be perfect, Manuel. You have the timings and meteorological data for our day’s flight?’’
‘’Of course! Here is your flight information for today. Your departure from Manila is scheduled for nine thirty this morning. Nearly all the seats have been reserved already and you will also be carrying some ten tons of supplies and industrial equipment destined for Jolo and Sanga Sanga. Our C-800s have in fact become the main way to quickly transport heavy loads to those two places, with the other alternate mean, ships, being much slower.’’
‘’Thanks, Manuel!’’ said Elizabeth while grabbing the file containing the flight information they needed. The two women then went to a separate table in a corner and studied their flight information for a few minutes while starting to fill together their flight plan for the day. Twenty minutes later, they returned to the service counter and gave their completed flight plan to the operations manager.
‘’Here you go, Manuel! You can register our flight plan. We will now do a preflight inspection of our aircraft. Is it already on the terminal’s tarmac or is it in the company’s hangar?’’
‘’It’s on the tarmac: tail number 078. It is presently being loaded with the supplies and equipment destined for Jolo and Sanga Sanga. It is due to be towed to Departure Gate 6 at nine.’’
‘’Thanks again, Manuel!’’
Grabbing again the telescopic handles of their suitcase, Shirley and Elizabeth left the operations office and started walking towards Gate 6, where their passengers were due to board their aircraft in about fifty minutes. As was customary where flight crews were concerned, the airport security agents controlling the access points to the departure section let them go through without searching their belongings or making them pass through a metal detector frame. Once at the Departure Lounge 6, the two women went through a guarded door emerged on the open tarmac. Shirley looked up critically at the partially cloudy sky while walking towards their aircraft.
‘’Hum, the meteo report predicts only a twenty percent chance of rain for this morning. It would be nice to fly in a blue sky for a change.’’
Elizabeth could only nod in agreement to that. The Philippines had a tropical climate with abundant precipitations and not infrequent tropical storms which dumped lots of rain on the archipelago during much of the year. That was also accompanied by high temperatures and humidity levels which caused most people to sweat heavily. However, contrary to the typical Americans visiting the Philippines, who were dripping with sweat the moment they stepped off their planes, both Shirley and Elizabeth were well acclimatized and also knew how to dress to stay relatively fresh. As they were getting close to their assigned aircraft, Elizabeth examined the Convair 800 Series 100 they were about to pilot, looking for any apparent problem about it. It was a big aircraft for a short to medium haul airliner, with a total length of 42 meters and a span of 45 meters. It had as well a wider than normal fuselage section, something that allowed it to carry 156 passengers in a six-seat-abreast arrangement and also permitted it to carry all sizes of standard aircraft load containers in its holds, under the main cabin. However, the most striking feature of the Convair 800 was its three engines. It was equipped with three powerful turboprop engines, each rated at a maximum of 8,079 shaft horsepower and powering pairs of large, contra-rotating propellers with reversible pitch, something that helped a lot to cut their landing run distances when using short runways. More than their size and power, it was the way they were fixed to the plane that made the Convair 800 truly unusual. Two of the engines were fixed to the top of the wings, which were themselves mounted high on the shoulders of the fuselage, and with their propellers acting as ‘tractor’ propellers. However, the third engine was fixed high at the very end of the fuselage, with its contra-rotating pair of propellers acting as a ‘pusher’ propeller. While definitely uncommon, that design helped cut significantly on aerodynamic drag, the bulk of the rear engine being inside the fuselage rather than out in the airstream. One last feature not found on many planes was the double, ‘H’ style rudders and elevators.
‘’I’m going to do an external visual inspection, Shirley. I will let you check and calculate our fuel load and weight trim.’’
‘’Got it!’’ replied Shirley, who was due to take the role of first officer for this flight, despite being also fully qualified to act as captain. She climbed aboard via the lower forward access airstair door, then stored her suitcase in the small nose compartment containing five bunk beds meant to be used by the crew when stuck by bad weather on some primitive airfield, a far from infrequent occurrence around the Philippines Archipelago. Next, she climbed up the stairs leading to the level of the main cabin and of the cockpit and entered the cockpit, which was designed for a flight crew of two persons. Seeing that the auxiliary power unit of the plane, located in the tail, was not on and not seeing any ground auxiliary power trailer connected to the aircraft, she decided to start the APU in order to start circulating some fresh air inside the plane. However, she first took care of warning Elizabeth about that, using the small pocket radio they each carried as a matter of routine during their flights.
‘’Elizabeth, this is Shirley. I intend to start our APU now, so that our air conditioning unit could start pushing some fresh air inside. Are there any mechanics around the tail section?’’
‘’No! Go right ahead!’’
In response, Shirley sat in the copilot’s seat and pushed a couple of buttons, making their APU wake up in a long whine. Once it was turning at normal regime and producing enough electricity, she started the air conditioning unit and set it to maximum.
By the time Elizabeth joined her in the cockpit after completing her visual inspection, the temperature inside the aircraft had changed from sauna-like to fairly reasonable.
‘’Aah, good initiative there, Shirley. It is about time to roll to Gate 6. I will go close our lower forward port side door and will call in a tractor.’’
‘’No need to call a tractor, Libby: I see one coming our way.’’
‘’Excellent! I will however still go close our lower access door.’’
As Elizabeth left the cockpit and went down the staircase linking the upper forward lobby to the lower lobby, where their two side airstair doors were, Shirley watched on as the airport aircraft tractor stopped in front of her Convair 800 and started hooking an ‘A’-frame towing bar to the plane’s nose wheel carriage. By the time Elizabeth was back in the cockpit, their plane had started to slowly roll towards Gate 6 of the Old Terminal. Some four minutes later, their Convair 800 stopped in front of the gate. Being an old building with a single level built in 1948, Terminal 4 had no jet bridge{2}, with the passengers having to walk or be bused to their aircraft from the terminal building. The first to enter the aircraft once Shirley opened the left side door were their four assigned flight attendants, all of whom were Filipinas and who were led by Corazon Villacruz, the senior flight attendant. Shirley hugged Corazon and kissed her on the cheek once she stepped inside.
‘’Nice to see you again, Corazon. We should fly together more often.’’
‘’Definitely, Shirley.’’ replied the 39-year-old Filipina, who was much shorter than Shirley, as were in fact most Filipina women. Shirley also hugged and kissed Maria Bonifacio, Francisca Bandong and Aisha Santos as they stepped inside the plane. Contrary to the three other attendants, who wore a wedge cap, Aisha wore a hijab, a Muslim head scarf that covered her hair. While the majority of Filipinos were Christians, there was a sizeable Muslim minority in the south of the Philippines, particularly in the Mindanao Region and the Sulu Archipelago, to the Southwest of Mindanao. A maintenance technician also entered the aircraft some twenty minutes later and went to the cockpit, where he presented a clipboard with forms on it to Elizabeth, who was now sitting in the pilot’s seat, on the left side.
‘’Good morning, Captain! Here is the fuel and cargo manifest for your flight to Davao. You have 22,000 kilos of fuel on board, plus 16,200 kilos of combined passengers and luggage weight and 10,600 kilos of supplies and equipment destined to Jolo and Sanga Sanga. You should have plenty of fuel for your return trip, without the need to refuel enroute. Please sign here.’’
Elizabeth looked at the numbers on the manifest, then signed it and ripped off her copy of it, passing it to Shirley as the technician left the cockpit.
‘’Here you go, Shirley. Please check our center of gravity trim and needed takeoff run length.’’
‘’On it!’’
In the lower forward lobby of the plane, where the left side airstair door of the plane was open, Corazon Villacruz and Francisca Bandong were greeting the incoming passengers and checking their boarding passes, while Maria Bonifacio and Aisha Santos stayed on the level of the passenger cabin and directed the passengers to their seats. The flight proved to be effectively full, with all 156 seats taken, at least for the Manila – Davao leg. Closing the airstair door and locking it, Corazon then picked up the interior telephone situated next to one of the two flight attendant seats located near the airstair doors and facing the staircase leading up to the main deck, calling the cockpit.
‘’Hello, Elizabeth? All 156 passengers are now aboard and our airstair door is closed and secured.’’
‘’Thank you, Corazon! I will now ask our tractor to push us away from the terminal, so that we can start our engines. Make sure that our passengers are seated and have their seat belts on, then advise me.’’
‘’Will do, Elizabeth.’’
Corazon then hooked back the telephone handset and climbed the staircase, ending up in front of the curtain closing off the forward section of the passenger cabin. Going to another communications panel next to the door of the cabin, she pressed the button signaling that seat belts had to be on and spoke in the telephone, set on ‘cabin call’ mode, using Tagalog, the main language spoken in Luzon.
‘’May I have your attention, ladies and gentlemen: we are about to move away from the gate. Please stay sitting and make sure that your seat belts are fastened. Your flight attendants will soon give you a demonstration about the safety features of this plane. Please listen to them carefully, as much of our flight will be over water.’’
She then repeated her announcement in Cebuano, the main language spoken in the Mindanao Region, then in English. Less than a minute after her announcement, the plane started moving backward, as an aircraft tractor was pushing it away from the terminal. Maria and Aisha had time to finish their safety demonstration before Elizabeth started first the tail engine, then the left and right-side engines. Going down the central aisle of the passenger cabin as the Convair 800 was rolling along a taxiway in order to take a waiting position next to one extremity of Runway 31, Corazon made a final check of the passengers’ seat belts while exchanging quick pleasantries in order to help reassure some of the passengers who were obviously either first flyers or were afraid of flying. Not surprisingly, many of the passengers were apparently Muslim, either wearing hijabs or religious symbols. Corazon however noticed four young men who appeared to be particularly nervous, with two of them holding prayer beads. Corazon had no negative feelings as such against Muslims but she knew too well that Islamist extremists and nationalists had been trying for decades to form an independent Islamic entity in the Mindanao Peninsula and the Sulu Archipelago. Those attempts had resulted in many bloody clashes and even some massacres between Christians and Muslims. Even now, the Filipino armed forces were still fighting Muslim extremists in specific regions, some of which their flight was due to visit. A mature bearded man in his fifties politely stopped her just as she was passing those four young men and spoke to her in Cebuano.
‘’Excuse me, miss, but I was told by somebody at the terminal that our two pilots are women. Is that true?’’
Putting that question on account of the bearded man being simply a conservative type, like most elder Muslim men, Corazon smiled and answered him in a gentle tone.
‘’Yes, they are, but they are also very experienced and talented pilots, sir. Both flew for decades with the United States Air Force but they have been flying with Air Philippines for more than nine years now and know well the flying conditions of this region.’’
‘’American female military pilots?’’ said the obviously surprised man. ‘’And do they treat Filipinos with respect? I have met too many Americans who treated us like inferiors and treated our women like prostitutes.’’
‘’Sir, I can assure you that our two pilots are very respecting of everyone and are very decent persons.’’
‘’That is nice to hear, miss. Maybe I will go salute them at the end of this flight.’’
‘’I am sure that they will greatly appreciate that, sir. By the way, both of them can speak both Tagalog and Cebuano.’’
The bearded man nodded his head in appreciation as Corazon continued her inspection down the aisle. The sad fact was that very few Americans in the Philippines bothered to learn one of the local languages, expecting instead the Filipinos around them to speak to them in English, something most Filipinos could actually do.
With the control tower giving them the authorization to take off and with their preflight checklist completed, Elizabeth lined up her aircraft with the centerline of the runway, which was the shortest of the two runways of the airport but still measured a good 2,258 meters-long. For the Convair 800, which could take off in as little as 600 meters in STOL conditions or a maximum of 900 meters in overload conditions, that was more than plenty. She thus pushed her engines to only their maximum continuous power of 7,300 horsepower each, instead of pushing them to their maximum intermittent power of 8,079 horsepower, and this in order to economize on her fuel, an important factor for Air Philippines, which prided itself in offering low-cost airfares to Filipinos around the archipelago. Still, she was able to raise the nose of her aircraft and fly cleanly off the runway after a mere 850 meters, then climbed at a fairly steep angle while accelerating. As with her other flights in the Convair 800, she felt pure joy at the sensation of power brought by her plane’s performances. Less than seven minutes later, she leveled her aircraft at their cruise altitude of 7,000 meters and grabbed her intercom’s microphone to make an announcement, using Tagalog first before repeating herself in Cebuano, then in English.
‘’Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are now at our cruising altitude of 7,000 meters and are flying at a cruising speed of 650 kilometers per hour. We should be landing in Davao in approximately one hour and twenty minutes. Your flight attendants will now start serving you a light snack and drinks. Enjoy your flight and thank you for flying with Air Philippines.’’
As she hooked back her intercom microphone, Shirley grinned to her from her copilot’s seat.
‘’You are now quite a linguist, Libby. Are you planning to learn another language on top of Tagalog and Cebuano?’’
‘’Actually, I have been learning Spanish in my spare time for over a year now. Many Filipinos, especially of the older generations, frequently speak Spanish or use Spanish words. Also, Spanish is becoming more and more important in the United States. And you, Shirley?’’
‘’Uh, don’t laugh but I have been trying lately to learn Arabic. ‘Trying’ is the operative word here: it is such a hard language to learn.’’
‘’Why would I laugh at that, Shirley? Arabic is an important, widely used language and we have seen more and more Middle Eastern people visit or establish themselves in the Philippines in order to do business here. Good for you for trying to learn it.’’
The two of them then mostly fell silent, in order to concentrate on they flying and their instruments monitoring.
Just after eleven o’clock, the Convair 800 landed at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport in Davao, the main city in the island of Mindanao. There, its 3,000-meter-long paved runway made it a cinch for Shirley, who had taken the commands from Elizabeth for the landing, to put down her airliner smoothly. Rolling her plane to the airport’s terminal, she stopped it in front of the gate assigned by the airport’s ground traffic controller before shutting down her engines, so that their passengers could disembark safely. Most of the 156 passengers on board then left, leaving only 39 of them to stay for the next two legs to Jolo and Sanga-Sanga. However, a fresh batch of 106 passengers then boarded the plane, nearly filling it back to capacity. From their clothes, it was evident to Shirley, who had temporarily left the cockpit to help greet the new passengers, that they were a more rural-type crowd. Corazon Villacruz, who was also greeting them and checking their boarding passes, smiled to Shirley as the last passengers were climbing the staircase to the main deck.
‘’This is a good passenger turnout for our Jolo destination, Shirley. A year ago, before our Convair 800 was put into service on this route, the average daily passenger movement to Jolo was less than half of today’s number. The low airfares we are offering and our capacity to use short airstrips has boosted a lot the air traffic to Jolo.’’
‘’Yes, and it also has boosted the air cargo traffic to and from Jolo, which is the sole airport for the Province of Sulu. We now represent a vital economic link for that province, mostly thanks to the STOL capabilities and large payload capacity of our Convair 800. As for me and Elizabeth, we love flying to Jolo: its short airstrip represents a welcome challenge for us and makes our job even more interesting.’’
‘’Yet, you always manage to perform smooth landings, even on the worst and shortest airfields served by Air Philippines. You and Elizabeth are truly top pros as pilots.’’
Shirley smiled at that compliment.
‘’Well, over 55 years of flying has done a lot to practice my piloting skills, Corazon.’’
The Filipina then gave her an envious look.
‘’You are 75-years-old, yet look as if you are merely fifty. I am jealous! That rejuvenation by an angel must have been an incredible experience.’’
‘’Oh, it was, Corazon. It also didn’t hurt that Archangel Michael was truly handsome.’’
That left Corazon dreaming for a moment before she returned herself to reality and closed and locked the airstair door, all the expected passengers now being aboard. On her part, Shirley returned to the cockpit and sat in her copilot’s seat, with Elizabeth smiling to her.
‘’How about we switch roles for this leg? You do the takeoff and I do the landing?’’
‘’Deal! This leg my be a short one but landing and taking off from Jolo is always interesting.’’
‘’As long as it doesn’t become TOO interesting… A tropical storm would sure do that. Thankfully, the weather is predicted to stay fair to good for the rest of the day. Well, time to start our pre-flight checklist.’’
Fifteen minutes later, Shirley was making their Convair 800 take off towards Jolo. With only 530 kilometers between Davao and Jolo, that leg took only 55 minutes from takeoff to landing, with Elizabeth needing to put her engines in reverse pitch in order to safely slow down on the short, World War 2-era runway. The so-called air terminal there was only a low, unassuming building flanked by one hangar and a wooden control tower. Still, there was a fair amount of activity at the airfield, with an old DC-3 twin-engine transport parked in front of the hangar and being loaded with crates. The moment that the Convair rolled to a stop in front of the terminal, a small army of baggage and cargo handlers rushed in with a couple of cargo pallet elevators and four old jeeps equipped with towing bars. Most of the industrial equipment they had been carrying, which were parts for a new fish processing plant to be built in Jolo, was unloaded, along with the luggage of half of the passengers. This time, only 22 new passengers came onboard. However, Shirley and Elizabeth knew that many passengers were waiting for their aircraft in Sanga-Sanga. This being a Friday afternoon