Poor Visibility Reported in Jetliner Crash

The pilot of an Air Philippines jet reported poor visibility minutes before the plane crashed Wednesday, killing all 131 people aboard, airport transcripts obtained Thursday showed.

The transcripts from the Philippines’ worst aviation disaster also indicated that air traffic controllers tried at least twice to hurry another plane off the runway so that Flight 541 could land.

But the pilot of the doomed airliner reported that the other plane, Philippine Airlines Flight 809, remained on the runway, so he circled and tried to put down from the opposite direction, slamming into a coconut grove on Samal Island near Davao city in the southern Philippines.

Villagers said the Boeing 737-200 hit the top of a coconut tree and lost a wing. The plane then roared its engines and tried to climb, but fell to the ground and exploded, they said.

Searchers on Thursday recovered the battered and charred remains of more victims, as well as the flight data recorder of the 22-year-old jet.

Airport officials said skies were foggy at the time of the crash. According to the tower transcript, as the pilot approached the airport, he reported that visibility was only three miles--considered marginal for visual landings, according to Philippine aviation officials.

The Davao airport does not have full equipment for instrument landings. Visibility was reportedly worse over Samal, 610 miles southeast of Manila.

Air Philippines, the country’s second-largest airline, began operations in 1996 and is one of the airlines created here after the industry was deregulated.