President Ramon Magsaysay’s last days - Part 4

This is taken from the Official Gazette regarding the last days of President Magsaysay which were spent in Cebu:

“March 17.—PRESIDENT Magsaysay is dead! The nation mourns!

“But the people of the Philippines clung stubbornly to the hope that the President was still alive this evening, even as hope faded in the wake of reports that the Chief Executive was killed in a plane crash in Cebu this morning.

“With 25 others, including a Cabinet official and the commanding general of the Air Force, the President was believed killed when his plane, the Mt. Pinatubo, crashed into a mountainside in Asturias, Cebu, early this morning.

“The plane took off at 1:15 in the morning darkness from the Lahug airport, Cebu City. Five minutes later, it sent back a message on weather conditions—the last it managed to send out before the crash.

“It was an accident which kept an entire nation on edge all day as it awaited minute-by-minute reports on the fate of the presidential plane and its passengers. Last night, as hope faded, the nation prepared to grieve the passing of the Asian leader.

“The only survivor in the fatal crash, the worst in the history of local aviation and the first air disaster anywhere in the world in which a chief of state was the victim, was Nestor Mata, staff member of the Philippines Herald. Mata was with the presidential party. The other newspapermen with the group were left behind in Cebu City.

“News of the disaster sparked the biggest, air-land-sea search concentrated on a few islands in Philippine history.

“The Air, Force, Military Area commands, Navy ships, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. 13th Air Force, and amateur flyers were all alerted to join the search.

“At 6:30 p.m. the plane wreckage was sighted to the boundary of Cebu City and Asturias. Shortly afterwards Defense Undersecretary Jose Crisol suspended the air search. Malacañang was immediately notified about the location of the wreckage and the failure of search teams to see a single survivor except Mata.

“The first official to report discovery of the wreckage was Marcelino Nuya, barrio lieutenant of Asturias.” (To be continued)