Singapore's airport closes for 1 hr as F16 jets intercept plane

[foxtwo]

It is not reflective of true war scenario.
The little propeller plane was spotted very long ago. Since as early as in Thai airspace, must have been many hours ago. Given the slow speed of propeller planes. It was spotted by the Thai and then Malaysian ATC. This message was then likely passed to Sing ATC.

So they had many hours of forward notice.
Dunno what "scramble" they are talking about.

Scramble is when your got enemy jets fast approaching at > Mach 1 unannounced beforehand and within a few minutes or seconds they are upon you over Sing.

A slow moving propeller civilian plane already spotted by 2 other countries' ATC hours ago? What scramble?

The effect of 2 F16s rushing to meet a slow moving propeller civilian plane is analogous to High Speed gunboats being mobilised to meet a one man small wooden sampan rowed by an elderly fisherman, the sampan being spotted hours ago through long range binoculars.

I really don't understand "scramble" in this case. They knew HOURS ago. And dunno why we are congratulating RSAF. It's a cake walk they can do blindfolded.

It is different if they scrambled to take on heavily armed enemy jets at less than a minute's notice and in a dogfight, shot down the enemy planes without any loss on our side.

Because 'scramble' is the proper use of the word in accordance to the situation? It doesn't matter why or for what they 'scrambled', for they still scrambled!

''Scramble is the traditional term for the order for assigned fighter plane pilots to take off and proceed to a destination in response to an alert to either investigate a sighting or intercept an enemy.'' (wikipedia).

Sure 'took off' would have the same meaning but com'on, 'scramble' is so exciting! Sure pulls more readers in, especially the armchair geeks like us!

 

[msamelia]

haha.. i love the word scramble. it always give me the rush...

 

[diCam]

It is not reflective of true war scenario.
The little propeller plane was spotted very long ago. Since as early as in Thai airspace, must have been many hours ago. Given the slow speed of propeller planes. It was spotted by the Thai and then Malaysian ATC. This message was then likely passed to Sing ATC.

So they had many hours of forward notice.
Dunno what "scramble" they are talking about.

Scramble is when your got enemy jets fast approaching at > Mach 1 unannounced beforehand and within a few minutes or seconds they are upon you over Sing.

A slow moving propeller civilian plane already spotted by 2 other countries' ATC hours ago? What scramble?

The effect of 2 F16s rushing to meet a slow moving propeller civilian plane is analogous to High Speed gunboats being mobilised to meet a one man small wooden sampan rowed by an elderly fisherman, the sampan being spotted hours ago through long range binoculars.

I really don't understand "scramble" in this case. They knew HOURS ago. And dunno why we are congratulating RSAF. It's a cake walk they can do blindfolded.

It is different if they scrambled to take on heavily armed enemy jets at less than a minute's notice and in a dogfight, shot down the enemy planes without any loss on our side.

Your post made you look childish. You totally have no idea of what you'd said. Have you serve NS? :dunno:

 

[Sonicboom]

surprisingly, the Malaysian Air Force did not send their SU-27s to intercept the Cessna. either they simply bo-chap or the Cessna flew over international waters on-route to Singapore.

There's a mistake here:think:, Malaysian Airforce bought the SU30s, and the first being delivered last year May.with more coming along planned for end of 2008. Even if there was to be a scramble, it won't be this particular aircraft, as I think they wouldn't have passed the operational status as yet, I would think the Mig29s would be more approriate in this case.

Some comments here criticizing RSAF for scrambling 2 F16s in this scenarios comes by with much ignorance of this business, which is quite natural. Imagine the cessna came through Singapore without intervention, I think the same people would say how lousy and ineffective the RSAF was, can't even intercept a prop cessna, that would be a harder position for RSAF to answer from. In any case, the squadrons rotate the scramble duties based on roster, it could be other aircraft on the duty during that time, then it wouldn't be F16 in the news now.

 

[theRBK]

I'm sure Malaysia would do something if the plane were flying along the other coast of Peninsular Malaysia and entering KL or Penang airspace... give the people up north a break

 

[raincool2005]

haha.. i love the word scramble. it always give me the rush...

in those active days, it is called " ACTIVATED "

 

[b-a-k]

in those active days, it is called " ACTIVATED "

It still is "Activated" so to speak. Aircrafts get Scrambled... Ground Based Air Defence gets Activated.. Makes sense don't it?

imagine if the Aircraft really got problem then Suay Suay crash into Jurong Island?
Petrol Company sure increase price to $2.5 per litre... almost like buying Evian Mineral Water liao:dunno:

 

[Headshotzx]

If such incident is to happen, to be frank, pray for Miracle.


I can't remember which year, but well, it happen before, but this time the plane did not intrude any air space.

An Greece airline lost contact with the tower control, but the radar manage to spot the planc, 2 Greece F-16s were send to investigate only to find the pilots and all the passengers were unconscious.

After running out of fuels, the plane crashed with no survivours.
Investigate show that it is due to technical errors which cause all unconscious. (can't remember what happen actually)

There's a documentary about this on National Geographic. The cause of this was that when the service crew maintained the plane, they set the compression adjustment to manual mode, and didn't turn it back. The cockpit suddenly had a lot of alarms and lights going on and off. The pilot, when asked about the compression adjustment switch, shrugged it off. Rapid decompression took place, and almost all the people were unconscious, cept one flight attendant, who tried to save the plane. They ran out of fuel and crashed.

 

[ricohflex]

I'm sure Malaysia would do something if the plane were flying along the other cost of Pensinsular Malaysia and entering KL or Penang airspace... give the people up north a break

Agree.
Look, their minister already stated his reasons. His staff/people must have got the facts fast, analysed the risks, told him the various scenarios and all the options they can take.
Obviously they decided that no further action was necessary.
Being a minister of MLY this decision was well within his authority.
As events turned out, he was absolutely right.

I don't know why we got this superior attitude. As though others are in a way inferior because they did not over-react.

Getting what was obviously an amphibious plane to land on the runway of a Changi airport runway disrupted commercial flights for some time.

Maybe they were following the SOP format. Going by the book. Don't know if that was the case. Some one already wrote to the ST why could they not divert the plane to Seletar airbase.

And why could they not get the pilot to land on the water since the plane was obviously amphibious. Then no need to disrupt Changi airport.

Not sure if this is just a brain dead way of strictly following the SOP format. The format says so, so must follow no matter what.

Just because we choose to do it this way, does not mean that others who coolly chose not to react, are bochap. They have done their risk evaluation. People just react differently. And they choose to do things the way they like in their own country. Which they are completely entitled to.

Certainly, our own air force and relevant civil organisations will do a careful post-mortem. Maybe draw some lessons from it.

 

[aeskywan]

In my humble opinon, I think the reason for the response we gave is simply because we are a major target for Islamic radicals. In case anyone have forgotten the JI guys who plotted to bomb MRT stations and target US vessels in port. Singapore is small and Malaysia is large... the pilot's flight path in Malaysia might be such a way that he is not near any build up areas. While for Singapore.... just crashing any place on the main island with the exception of Bukit Timah is an major disaster... Hence the need to get that plane off the air asap.


I think I would rather the RSAF over react than not react and we have an incident on our hands.

 

[cairocks]

One point, Malaysia is a much bigger country. More buffer zone to observe and react accordingly. Singapore is tiny, that is a fact. I don't know if we can send our planes into Malaysian airspace to intercept, but when the plane crosses the line, we are left with very little reaction time. Don't know if there is enough time to notify a minister.

Found this photo in Airliner.net. It really strikes me of how small we are. From the picture's foreground, eastern tip Pulau Ubin could be seen. So obviously, the photographer is in Malaysian airspace when this is taken. We can see the whole of Changi airport, straits of Singapore and even northern Batam or Bintan in the background. This shows almost all of our airspace we can work with around Changi.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1316106&size=L&width=1024&height=695&sok=WHERE%20%20%28MATCH%20%28aircraft%2Cairline%2Cplace%2Cphoto_date%2Ccountry%2Cremark%2Cphotographer%2Cemail%2Cyear%2Creg%2Caircraft_generic%2Ccn%2Ccode%29%20AGAINST%20%28%27%20&photo_nr=

 

[aeskywan]

I think it doesnt take much imagination to know what will happen if the plane crashed into a HDB block or worse into the highly concentrated CBD. By the time the plane has entered our airspace... there is virtually nothing we can do besides shooting it down if it decides to turn hostile, in which we wont know where the shot down plane is going to land except know that it is definetely going to land somewhere in the mainland and on some buildup area. That would be another major disaster...

 

[calebk]

Agree.
Look, their minister already stated his reasons. His staff/people must have got the facts fast, analysed the risks, told him the various scenarios and all the options they can take.
Obviously they decided that no further action was necessary.
Being a minister of MLY this decision was well within his authority.
As events turned out, he was absolutely right.

I don't know why we got this superior attitude. As though others are in a way inferior because they did not over-react.

Getting what was obviously an amphibious plane to land on the runway of a Changi airport runway disrupted commercial flights for some time.

Maybe they were following the SOP format. Going by the book. Don't know if that was the case. Some one already wrote to the ST why could they not divert the plane to Seletar airbase.

And why could they not get the pilot to land on the water since the plane was obviously amphibious. Then no need to disrupt Changi airport.

Not sure if this is just a brain dead way of strictly following the SOP format. The format says so, so must follow no matter what.

Just because we choose to do it this way, does not mean that others who coolly chose not to react, are bochap. They have done their risk evaluation. People just react differently. And they choose to do things the way they like in their own country. Which they are completely entitled to.

Certainly, our own air force and relevant civil organisations will do a careful post-mortem. Maybe draw some lessons from it.

Agree and disagree.

IMHO the reason why the plane had to actually land on, well, land, was most likely because it is easier to mobilise airport police to complete the round-up, rather than having to contact a third-party: Coast Guard, if the plane were to land on water.

As to why they couldn't divert it to Seletar? I'm just guessing it's 'cause Seletar is a military institution. Not too sure of this myself.

And yes, I don't see why we should assume a more "superior" attitude towards whatever other countries did upon spotting the UFO. They had their own risk assessment, and they passed news to other countries that might be involved (namely Singapore) later on in the plane's strange journey.

 

[foxtwo]

Well it's a civilian aircraft after all. Since it was decided to not be a security threat and the passengers in distress, there is no need to escort them to a military airfield. Changi airport has wider runways, away from densely populated areas and ground staff are better equipped/trained to handle the situation.

It will be more dangerous to have the Cessna remain in the air (communications out, not choosing to land prior to reaching Singapore might be cause for concern eg. unfamiliar with territory etc) since night is approaching. Get them down fast and safely, I believe that's the international response for any such situations.

Really.... to have such selfish people out there who feel the plane should have been diverted just so Changi doesn't get disrupted. I'm glad our authorities don't have their noses in the air.

 

[Ah Pao]

WHATEVER action the RSAF has taken, there will be proponents and opponents to their actions. Natural, since talk is easy (especially in an online forum!)
So it's best if everything keep quiet...then again, people will KPKB why our people not informed, etc. Well, can't please everyone.

IMHO, whatever action that RSAF has taken, the motivation is for the best interests of the people. Overkill or not, it's not up to us to judge, since we don't have complete information. The point is to minimise the risk of any (possible) hostile intent. It is our duty as citizens to defend the sovereignty of this country, not poke holes at it.

 

[AReality]

He took off about 2pm. At 2.30pm, Mr Thomas radioed that the engine had developed problems.
Six minutes later air traffic control lost contact with the plane, which disappeared from radar. The plane was spotted again at a height of 32,000 feet over the Thai-Malaysian border.

32,000 feet?
I thought that cessna has a max ceiling of 25,000 feet.

Dun think the 208 has pressurised cabin, therefore max ceiling with passengers should be ard 12,000 ft.

At 32,000 ft, a human takes about 2 mins to lose consciousness.

Hmmm....
Am I missing something here?


.

 

[paradigm]

One point, Malaysia is a much bigger country. More buffer zone to observe and react accordingly. Singapore is tiny, that is a fact. I don't know if we can send our planes into Malaysian airspace to intercept, but when the plane crosses the line, we are left with very little reaction time. Don't know if there is enough time to notify a minister.

Found this photo in Airliner.net. It really strikes me of how small we are. From the picture's foreground, eastern tip Pulau Ubin could be seen. So obviously, the photographer is in Malaysian airspace when this is taken. We can see the whole of Changi airport, straits of Singapore and even northern Batam or Bintan in the background. This shows almost all of our airspace we can work with around Changi.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1316106&size=L&width=1024&height=695&sok=WHERE%20%20%28MATCH%20%28aircraft%2Cairline%2Cplace%2Cphoto_date%2Ccountry%2Cremark%2Cphotographer%2Cemail%2Cyear%2Creg%2Caircraft_generic%2Ccn%2Ccode%29%20AGAINST%20%28%27%20&photo_nr=

hmmm .. was this pic taken using a telephoto lens? ;p:bsmilie::bsmilie::bsmilie:

 

[Dovedo]

Just read some of the tread postings and wanted to clear up some doubts

1 Different cessna model of planes have different height limits. There was NO way that this plane was travelling at 32000ft since planes of this type usually travel at about 20000ft. My theory is he managed to avoid the radar detection in malaysia because he was flying around the mountains and at the same time deliberately flying very low as it is not possible for malaysian authorities to track aircraft below a certain height and malaysia does not have radar equipment that are so advanced as compared to singapore. The malaysian minister was just pulling a fast one on the journalists.

2 Depending on the situation, risk factor, weather factor, and the flight path, yes there are SOPs as to which action to take, in this case the action was appropriate. The RSAF does train for this scenarios year in year out.

3 A common question was why did RSAF not scramble the jets when the cessna was over malaysia. The reason is very simple. The cessna was not in singapore airspace, and RSAF will usually only engage upon foreign aircraft entering singapore airspace. In case anyone is also wondering jet fuel definately much more expensive than your local everyday fuel so it makes business sense to engage the opponent at the right moment.

4 This model of plane is quite old. There is a high possibility that the plane and the equipment on board might not have meet international safety standards and the pilot might not have fully checked the plane before take off.

 

[Dovedo]

5 The Changi airport runway is more longer and enables the pilot of troubled aircraft more time to bring the aircraft to land safely.

6 Cairocks is correct, you need permission to enter malaysian airspace and thus RSAF fighter jets cannot suka suka enter malaysia. Similarly the pilot of the Cessna has already broken the rules by going into malaysia airspace and singapore airspace without permission, thus he has commited an offence so RSAF has the right to intercept the aircraft.

I find it interesting and rather absurb that ricoflex has the idea of not having or following SOP, my point to this person is would you rather have another german incident where the plane was detected and managed to bypass all the defence systems because there was no SOP and proper co-ordination? :angry:

 

[jsbn]

There's a mistake here:think:, Malaysian Airforce bought the SU30s, and the first being delivered last year May.with more coming along planned for end of 2008. Even if there was to be a scramble, it won't be this particular aircraft, as I think they wouldn't have passed the operational status as yet, I would think the Mig29s would be more approriate in this case.

Some comments here criticizing RSAF for scrambling 2 F16s in this scenarios comes by with much ignorance of this business, which is quite natural. Imagine the cessna came through Singapore without intervention, I think the same people would say how lousy and ineffective the RSAF was, can't even intercept a prop cessna, that would be a harder position for RSAF to answer from. In any case, the squadrons rotate the scramble duties based on roster, it could be other aircraft on the duty during that time, then it wouldn't be F16 in the news now.

Damn if u do, damn if u don't.

Kinda interesting on human mentality huh?