Biz Buzz: BSP’s precious ‘documents’ /

There was a time when the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) owned a fleet of airplanes (jets and turboprops) and helicopters which it used to transport cash to all corners of the country, as well as to bring to its central mint in Quezon City the gold it would buy from miners in Northern Luzon and Mindanao.

But that was before these air assets were disposed of in the 1990s. Today, the central bank relies on commercially chartered aircraft for these tasks—a scheme that is more efficient, given the high costs associated with acquiring and maintaining one’s own fleet.

Last Wednesday, however, one such aircraft chartered by the BSP was involved in a mishap while it was delivering... well... officially, it was delivering “documents” to the central bank’s branch in Albay.

As reported in the news, the Gulfstream G200 executive jet owned and operated by local air charter firm Asian Aerospace made an emergency landing at the new Legazpi airport that was still being built. What? How?

Asian Aerospace is owned by businessman Peter Ro

driguez, and he spoke to Biz Buzz a few hours after the incident to explain what may have happened. You see, the new Bicol International Airport currently being built in Daraga, Albay, is only a few kilometers away from the existing Legazpi airport.

More importantly, the runways of both airports are oriented along very similar alignments that are only a few degrees off. Thus, a pilot lining up to land on the southern end of the Legazpi airport may actually be confused by the nearly completed runway of the new Bicol airport which he will fly over. That’s the prevailing theory on what happened to the Asian Aerospace jet, in fact.

Of course, the company hires highly skilled captains and first officer and, in this case, the jet was commanded by an American pilot who formerly flew for US carrier Delta Airlines. Imagine his surprise when he landed on the new Bicol airport thinking it was the Legaspi airport... and then seeing construction equipment at the end of the runway, that forced him to veer onto the grass to avoid hitting them.

Fortunately, no one was injured and the BSP’s precious cargo of “documents” (wink, wink) were immediately secured. The aircraft may have to undergo repairs to its front undercarriage though. That should be no problem for Asian Aerospace since business in the air charter industry has been booming of late.