Philippine Airlines Flight 443

Philippine Airlines Flight 443 was an early morning domestic flight that crashed on approach to Maria Cristina Airport, on December 13, 1987. The flight was intended to fly to Malabang Airport after arriving in Iligan before returning to Cebu.

The Short 360-300 operating the route departed Mactan–Cebu International Airport at 6:42 a.m. local time. with a delay of 17 minutes. The last radio contact was at 7:17 a.m, local time, when the aircraft was on approach to land at Iligan, on Runway 02. When on approach, the aircraft crashed onto the side of Mount Gurain, a nearby mountain to the airport that was around 5000 feet high. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and all 15 people on board the plane, 11 passengers and 4 crew, were confirmed dead.

This would be the first fatal accident involving a Short 360.

Public information concerning this flight has remained scarce - no accident report has been publicly available, no pictures of the crash site have surfaced on the Internet and no transcript or CVR was ever released.

Passengers and crew
The passengers were identified to be:


 * Dr. Lita Benitez


 * Orville Cloma
 * C. Dimosimba
 * Vicente Guanzon
 * Judith Mellijor
 * Leslie Mellijor (child)
 * Linda Monterroyo
 * Lufrosino Jacob
 * John Richard Wood
 * Dinky Montaner (flying to Malabang)
 * Norayda Montaner (flying to Malabang)

The only foreigner during the flight was John Richard Wood from Australia - the rest were all Filipino.

The crew were identified to be Captain Roberto L. Sarenas, Captain Pastor Quebral, First Officer Abelardo Villarba and stewardess Antoinette Lim.

Search and recovery
After the aircraft failed to arrive in Iligan, a communications search was conducted across all airports in Mindanao, however all airports failed to receive a call from Flight 443.

Philippine Airlines immediately ordered three planes to fly on the route the aircraft took while the Philippine Air Force assisted the search by sending over two Huey helicopters, however efforts were delayed by inclement weather in the area.

On December 19, five days after the crash, the wreckage was found, with ground troops reporting that some of the victims had missing limbs, and that others were badly burnt. There were reports that the crash site was also looted.

This was the second fatal accident that Philippine Airlines had in 1987, with Philippine Airlines Flight 206 crashing in Baguio on June 26.