Concern over speed of response may have contributed to fatal 2003 helicopter accident, probe finds
Two crew members killed in a Government Flying Service helicopter were racing to meet a target response time when they crashed into a hillside on Lantau in low visibility, an investigation into the accident has revealed.
Pilot Pang Fu-kwok, 34, and crewman Dickson Chan Man-tik, 31, were killed when their helicopter crashed into a hill on the Tung Chung Pass on August 26, 2003.
The Civil Aviation Department (CAD) report into the accident, released yesterday, said the pilot's wife told investigators her husband had been concerned about keeping performance pledges to attend casualty evacuation scenes within 20 minutes.
The day before the accident, Pang had abandoned an attempt to cross Lantau Island via the Tung Chung Pass and had gone through the Silvermine Pass instead, thus failing to meet the target time.
The report stated that this failure may have been playing on his mind because he discussed it with a colleague on the way to work and mentioned to GFS air traffic controllers just 90 seconds before the crash that the chances of meeting the target were 'marginal'.
Last night, Calvin Shum Chi-wai, GFS manager of operations, said there were no plans to amend the performance pledges, adding that pilots were never penalised or criticised for failing to meet target times, which were a 'management tool to gauge our performance'.