Watching history happen

By Capt. G A Fernando

(July 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There are three types of people; the one’s who make things happen, the one’s who watch things happen and the one’s who exclaim "what happened?" This is a story about someone who watched things happen.

In July 1985, I was appointed a Captain with Air Lanka, on the Boeing 737-200 twin-jet. The aircraft was leased from an Irish company called Air Tara, a subsidiary of Guinness Peat Aviation. In 1984, before it joined the Air Lanka fleet, this aircraft had flown through a severe thunderstorm in Kenya, during which its airframe was stressed way above the ‘g’ (force of gravity) limits for which it was designed. Consequently, it had to be flown back to Dublin for a comprehensive ‘D’ check whereby the aircraft was dismantled down to its smallest parts, inspected, repaired where necessary and reassembled with a new Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA). Working on the aircraft were 40 trainee engineers of Air Lanka, under the supervision of Jim Gunaratnam.

Squadron Leader Jim was a ‘high flyer’ from the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF). Among other achievements, he was the engineer responsible for carrying out the ‘Riley conversion’ on two of the Air Force’s four de Havilland DH 114 Herons during the early 1970s. This involved replacing each of the airplanes four de Havilland Gipsy Queen piston engines with more modern and powerful Lycoming power plants. The conversion, patented by an American named Jack Riley, included installation of engine cowlings of entirely different shape, new three-blade propellers (instead of the original two-blade props) and other modifications. Adding to the challenge was the fact that Riley Aeronautics Corporation had ceased to exist by then, so some parts of the Heron Conversions had to be fabricated by Jim Gunaratnam himself.

After repairs in Dublin, the Boeing 737 was ready for leasing to Air Lanka. It was registered in Sri Lanka as 4R-ULH and named ‘City of Galle’. Although I was still a trainee Captain, I was one of the crew tasked with ferrying the aircraft to Colombo. The others were Capt. Tom Mcbennet, the Chief Pilot of Air Lanka, another Air Tara pilot whose name I forget and First Officer Mohan O. Gunaratne. Our passengers were the 40 men who had worked on the aircraft. But Jim Gunaratnam, carrying the airplane’s technical paperwork, took a scheduled airline flight instead - just in case!

By the time I was Captain, I knew this airplane well (in fact, I had performed its 66,000th landing). We were using it on AirLanka’s regional flights to Male (Maldive Islands), Bombay, Karachi, Madras, Tiruchirapolli (Tiruchinopoly, or Tiruchi/Trichy) and Trivandrum. By 1985, relationships between India and Sri Lanka were somewhat strained.

Although the B-737 was a second generation jet and quite advanced for its time, at least one of our Indian destinations, Trichy, was rather primitive. It did not have distance measuring equipment (DME) or an instrument landing system (ILS). Trichy airport also lacked Precision Approach Path Indicators (PAPIs) to aid us in a visual approach and landing. Accordingly, we had formulated a unique arrival technique. We began our descent as we crossed the Indian coastline and when at 10,000ft, planned to be abeam a disused airport called Ramnad. Then at 6000ft, we expected to be over the south Indian town of Pudukkottai in the small state of the same name and not far from Trichy. (During British colonial times, in August 1915, the Rajah of Pudukkottai, Prince Matanda Bhairava Tondaiman, married an Australian, Molly Fink of Melbourne; but that’s another story for someone else to relate).

Pudukkottai could be identified by a square reservoir in the centre of the town. Overhead, the town we would turn on a heading of 360 degrees (Due North) and let down to the circuit height for Trichy airport while looking out for a small-arms factory and a big water tank. The aim was to fly between the tank and the building. We could usually see the parapet wall of the airport boundary reflected in the sunlight, even before spotting the runway. When it was cloudy and we could not see the ground, we had to descend to a safe altitude and perform an instrument let down, a procedure called a ‘non precision approach’. As I was quite friendly with the local Air Traffic Controllers, they would recognize my voice. After we landed, the conversation between the Air Traffic Controller and Captain, would usually go something like this.

Tower: "Good morning Capt. Fernando, would you like to come up for a ‘vadai’ and a cup of coffee?"

Capt. Fernando: "Good morning, I will see you in a while."

Tower: "When you come up would you get us a copy of the morning’s papers, but not the ‘Daily News." (Perhaps, even then they knew that it was a Government propaganda tabloid!)

Capt. Fernando: "Roger!"

I would then ask the First Officer (Co-pilot) to supervise the one hour ground turn around, freeing myself to pick up the newspapers from the aircraft cabin and walk up to the control tower to file the flight plan for the trip back to Colombo. While doing so we would speak of many things including the developing political situation. The conversation in the Tower would proceed along these lines.

Controller:" Do you know, Captain, although our Lady [Indira Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India who had by then been assassinated] was denying that we were training your people, [LTTE Operatives], believe me, every day when coming to work I pass a camp in which your people are being trained." (One of the places mentioned was Pudukkottai).

Then at the end of May 1987 during the legendary Vadamarachchi battle operation, when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi gathered his invasion Armada at the port of Rameshwaram, I was again flying to Trichy. Because my direct track wasn’t going right over the harbor, I requested permission to deviate a few miles left of track - claiming non existent bad weather as an excuse! - to be able to photograph the assembled boats with my old Konica. Then on June 3rd I operated another flight to Trichy and observed that one solitary Sri Lanka Navy Boat was stopping Karunanidhi’s fleet on its tracks. (I had requested permission from Colombo Control to cruise at a lower altitude). The following paraphrases my PA (Public Address) announcement to the passengers:

"Ladies and gentlemen this is your Captain speaking. Those of you on the right hand side of the aircraft can see history in the making. One solitary Sri Lanka Navy Boat has stopped Mr. Karunanidhi’s flotilla!"

On June 4th, the day of ‘Operation Poomalai’ - the infamous ‘Parippu Drop’ by India - I flew to Madras (Chennai) in the morning. By the time of our return trip to Colombo it was late morning. As was customary for some of us civil pilots, I tuned the air force radio frequency when overhead KKS to monitor the activity below. Those were the days before the LTTE acquired SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles), so we used to fly directly over KKS. In any case, flying above 30,000ft we would have been well beyond the range of a SAM. I suddenly heard someone, presumably from the SLAF base at KKS, saying there was an unidentified aircraft overhead, so I immediately got on the radio, identified ourselves and said that we were the ones overhead. But the replying voice said that it couldn’t be us as the unidentified airplane was a turboprop (the 737 was a ‘pure jet’). A few minutes later, needing to speak with Flight Operations at AirLanka in Colombo, we changed our frequencies and lost contact with our faceless radio ‘friend’.

Having landed in Colombo, we prepared for our next sector to Trivandrum after a brief rest. Upon reaching Trivandrum, we noticed that the entire airfield was chock-a-block with Hawker Hunter Jet Fighters of the Indian Air Force (IAF), plus three H S (Avro) 748 transports. In the light of what later became known, they were presumably all awaiting orders to fly to Colombo. It normally took us only 38 minutes to fly from Trivandrum to Colombo. The invasion force would have been in Colombo in a much shorter time, and it was easy to imagine a Cyprus style invasion of Sri Lanka. Mr. Naiar Air Lanka’s Indian Ground engineer, was deeply apologetic for what was happening around us. Naiyar had a daughter who had the ‘wheeze’, and I use to supply him with a popular brand of balm from Sri Lanka, to provide her with some relief. We also observed the worry on the face of our Airport Manager, Mr. Srinivasan. It was only when we got back to Colombo at about 5.15 pm that we were told that the Indians had just completed their so - called ‘humanitarian’ exercise code - name operation ‘Poomalai’.

To briefly recap, the operation involved five Antonov An-32 twin - turboprop transports of the Indian Air Force carrying relief supplies for beleaguered Sri Lankans in the north of the island. The An-32s were escorted to and from Sri Lanka airspace by five Mirage 2000 jet fighters, each of which was equipped with two Matra Magic II AAMs (Air to Air Missiles), in case of aerial resistance from the SLAF. Also on board the Antonov was a contingent of Indian and international journalists. Allegedly failing in their attempts to contact Colombo Air Traffic Control, and totally unopposed by Sri Lankan forces either in the air or on the ground, the An-32s descended from 12,000ft to about 1500ft and paradropped the food supplies (including parripu or dhal) over a designated zone some 7 Km from Jaffna. Still without opposition, the aerial armada returned to their bases in India, where the crews were greeted with much jubilation.

It then occurred to me that the lone Turboprop aircraft that was observed by the SLAF during our return from Madras earlier that day was probably one of the IAF An-32s ‘testing the water’ before the main event.

On July 24th, when we were lining up for takeoff from the Western runway at Trichy, we were asked to hold position until two IAF Helicopters crossed the Airfield. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (aka Pirapaharan) and family were aboard one of the ‘choppers’. He was on his way to see the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi before the infamous Indo - Sri Lanka Peace Accord was signed.

Then on July 29th, the day when Rajiv Gandhi arrived in Colombo aboard an Indian Airlines Corporation (IAC) Airbus A 300 for the signing of the Accord, the situation was very tense. I was due to land at Katunayake at almost the same time in my B-737. In normal circumstances, the Indian Prime Minister’s aircraft (being VIP) would be given priority to land, but the air traffic controller gave me clearance to approach before the IAC A300. I could sense the defiance in the controller’s voice. I believe he was doing his bit for Sri Lanka! Landing about three minutes ahead of Gandhi’s aircraft, it was very tempting to increase our runway occupancy time to force the VIP flight to go around. But professionalism prevailed and we vacated the runway in time to obtain a ringside view of Rajiv’s arrival. Later we discovered that the A300 was being flown by Rajiv Gandhi himself (who had been an India Airlines Captain before he reluctantly gave up his flying career to enter the turbulent political arena), as the flight plan received by the Colombo tower had his name as the ‘pilot in command’.

Then came the ‘invasion by invitation’. After dropping off the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) troops up north, the IAF aircraft picked up Sri Lankan soldiers and brought them south to Katunayake - BIA. On the way back to their home bases the Indians carried large (commercial) quantities of electronic and luxury goods from Colombo’s duty free shops. Again I had a ringside seat, watching all this happen from our flight deck of Air Lanka’s Boeing 737 4R-ULH, ‘City of Galle’.

-Sri Lanka Guardian