The Ride To TA

The way the church has been going lately, I wonder if I will even get a fair funeral mass should I die soon. They want proof that I am Catholic, that I am part of this church, that I am a serving member of a church community et cetera, et cetera and frankly, I have arrived at a point where I don't care so much about what happens to my body once my spirit detaches from it.

All the same, to not make things more difficult for those who are left saddled with the work of burying or cremating me, I decided that I should settle at least my documentation once and for all and get my "3-in-1" extract from the church wherein I was baptised, St Anthony's Church in Teluk Intan or as it was known back in the day, Telok Anson. Indeed, for as long as I was flying the Nuri, Teluk Intan still had a non directional beacon which we could use as a navigation aid with its identifying morse code. Tango Alpha! How quaint.

Brenda had requested that we also ride over the bridge to Bagan Datoh, the Jambatan Sultan Nazrin because it looked so dramatic from the road leading in and out of Teluk Intan via the southern route. The plan then was to ride to Teluk Intan on Monday 27 April, get the extract from St Anthony's on Tuesday and ride home on Wednesday. Bookings were made for Hotel Anson and come Monday, we set off at 0925.

It was our first time trying out the West Coast Expressway from just after Klang to Teluk Intan. We were well rewarded by not having to endure too many of the jams which plague the normal route via the Shah Alam highways heading north. It seemed that before too long, we were already passing the corner-of-the-world towns of Sabak Bernam and Sekinchan. We took one water break on the highway and one more at the Sabak Bernam Petronas station to stay hydrated in he baking heat. Thank goodness for mesh jackets!

The Android Auto unit on the bike resumed the navigation as we continued on our way. The miles slipped by and before long, it showed Teluk Intan was about 14km ahead. The town council provides a "bike lane" which like many egalitarian facilities in Malaysia, vanishes both sporadically and intermittently. But the TA drivers thankfully, understood the quirks of their town and seemed to me especially tolerant of my adherence to the arrangements.

Riding in Teluk Intan is always a slower affair than in other towns, I find. That's because there are many motorists who are aged, and extra caution needs to exercised while driving to keep the accident rate low. We wove our way slowly to our accommodations, this time at Anson Hotel. It was close to the church and our favourite eatery, the Anson Hainan Kopitiam. The only snag was that it being a Monday, both the Hainan Kopitiam and Ah Lek, Teluk Intan's foremost chee cheong fun outlet was closed. Thankfully, the restaurant right next to Anson Hotel was open and once we had checked in, we had lunch there and it was rather good. Evening was on us soon enough. We decided to call for Grab noodles for dinner and in my utter brilliance, I had neither packed utensils into my tank bag nor had I requested plastic cutlery from the Grab restaurant. I sent a rather vehement Note To Self.

The Anson Hainan Kopitiam. A bit "atas" judging by the clientele.

Our appointment with a Ms Rowena (yes, a Rowena) the next day was at 0930, the office hours of the church admin. We figured we would ride to Ah Lek first, where we relished the chee cheong fun. We managed to have a leisurely breakfast and got to church on time. However, Ms Rowena was nowhere to be found and cross checking with her on WhatsApp revealed that she would be an hour late. I then checked how long she would be around and she said till 1230. That gave us just enough time to cross the Jambatan Sultan Nazrin and get back to retrieve my extract. Yes, a bit tight but this was why we made the trip since 4 months of communicating with Rowena to get the extract mailed to me always ended up in silent treatment. So we kitted up and set off for Bagan Datoh!

A cafe stop at Kopi Saigon, Bagan datoh

The route to Bagan Dato was 45 minutes long via coutry lanes with nasty drivers who didn't care about running right through you during overtakes from ahead. It may have been a bit of an arduous route, but it got us to Bagan Datoh rather congenially, without having to cross roads or traffic. We grabbed a very nice coffee at Kopi Saigon (purportedly Vietnamese). where we seemed to be he only customers in a rather dead quiet little town. Just as soon as we drained the cup, it was time to make it back to st Anthony's or I would have failed the mission.

It was hardly 3km from kopi Saigon where the long stretch of road to the bridge began. Trivia has it that the bridge stands at 10km long, with the overwater span at 1.5km. Rather impressive for a sleepy hollow such as Bagan Datoh!

As we rode, I kept a close watch on the ETA to st Anthony's. It seemed that we would arrive just a few minutes after 1200, which shouldn't displease Ms Rowena too much. We stopped just outside the church office and I went in to get the extract. I held the little sheet of blue paper, a 3-in-1 certificate with the dates and churches where I was baptised, did my Confirmation and was married. I couldn't help reminiscing on Boromir's words: "Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?"

The artistry of Malaysian murals is not to be underrated. Let's not forget Pudu Jail.

But, mission accomplished!

We had a much better and more restful night.

The next morning we had an indulgent breakfast at the Anson Hainan Kopitiam. I hazarded a serving of rojak buah to top off my noodles and half boiled eggs. I tend to not be so strict with myself when I'm on the road, what with being a pilgrim and all that it waivers. Brenda bought some TA coffee and peanut cakes. We had space in our luggage.

Now, for an  ambling ride home.

And So I Carry On

I have always served in some way or form in every church I've attended. Starting as a commentator in Sacred Heart Cathedral Kota Kinabalu during my confirmation at age 11, to being part of the choir in St Francis Xavier Petaling Jaya, to being a lecter at St Chastan and Imbert Butterworth, I have always sought to render my contributions in some way I could amidst my hectic schedule as a military pilot.

I was unaware that in a voluntary church group like the choir, the priest would find it in himself to dictate who joins, who gets sacked and who serves him as he wants to be served. Yes, you heard me.

And so it happened to Brenda and I in 2020, when Covid19 gripped the nation and a backdoor government was installed, the parish priest of my church here in Somban sacked the choir without providing a reason. One of the senior choir members tried reasoning with him but he was adamant. I didn't think too much of it save for indignation at having no choice but to concede. I was a struggling copilot in the offshore helicopter flying world then, and I didn't have the time premium to let this scar fester.

I was kept busy. The office politics which is difficult for a senior first officer to sidestep and being the Base Flight Safety Officer consumed my energies. Also in 2021 I discovered I was diabetic and had that to deal with. My transfer to Kota Kinabalu base came in 2022 whcih started another round of adapting to a new life and environment and work life took on a form of its merry own.

So when the curtains drew to a close after CAAM's medical board decided to ground me permanently based on my haemorrhagic stroke in 2025, I decided that I could throw my effort into church. Coincidentally, the church notices projected before the final blessing indicated that the evening mass choir was in need of people. Hence, I signed up.

It was all going cheerfully for about a year.

The priest sacked the 0930H morning mass choir. In toto. It's what he does. When one of the sacked guitarists approached him to be reinstated, the priest was again, as ever, adamant over his sacking. Which is when the young punk asked him why it is that a former sacked choir member could be allowed to return to the choir while he could not. Yes, he meant me.

The priest was scandalised. He had no idea who I was even though he had seen me mass after mass for a year. He had heard me singing psalms for a year and was oblivious still. Indeed for the chrism mass rehearsal which he checked with a fine tooth comb, he heard me sing the psalm too, gave his seal of approval and yet didn't realise it was me. And so, he dismissed me once again. Not by telling me personally, but via the choir mistress.

I put in an appointment to see him about this, as was intimated to me was his request via the choir mistress. His clerk called me to inform me that he didn't want to see me and any questions I have should be referred to the choir mistress.

It's bad enough that he is too yellow bellied to meet me one on one. He slandered me during a meeting he had with the rest of the choir members about how badly I sang the psalm during the chrism mass. 

I am not going to insist on meeting him. It is already clear to me that his reasons for the first sacking in 2020 and the second one in 2026 were indefensible, which is why he sacked me again when questioned by the hapless chap from the morning mass choir. 

He draws far too much attention to himself for him to be actually serving God. 

But worry not. He hasn't seen the last of me.

"They shall look upon the one whom they pierced."

I shall revel in that Scriptural reference.

Farewell To Flying

It has finally come to this: my country's regulatory authority over my license has sounded the death knell over my flying days.

It appears that anyone who has had a brain bleed, or what aviation doctors call "haemorrhagic stroke", is considered permanently unfit to exercise the privileges of his license.

ICAO Document 8984 Manual Of Aviation Medicine does permit an observation period of one to two years before medical certification is permissible, therefore I do wonder why my regulatory authority's medical board has deemed me permanently unfit. As I only received the brief letter from them just today, I am unsure of whether I can challenge them or not. 

Assuming that I don't, I am thereby retiring from the flying world.

I have had 30 years of flying, with the potential for another 4 years now forfeit due to my medical condition.

I feel fine. I am still cycling and riding my Vulcan S 650. I understand that the culprit for my brain bleed was the anti-platellete CoPlavix I had to take as prescribed due to my stent, which the neurologist, my neurosurgeon and my cardiologist agreed to stop upon my brain bleed incident. I feel wasted by the ruling of the board, yet nigh powerless against their summary dealing with my fate.

Perhaps they deliberated on the possibility of recurrence because I would have to return to some form of anti-platellete, but it seems ridiculous to presume that I would be placed on the double strength version I was on before. In any case, what's done is done.

Is this the end of The Collective Consciousness?

Brenda doesn't think it should. My blog is supposed to be for me, and not just about flying per se. I am toying with the idea of continuing to write till death take me. I haven't decided yet in this raw moment. 

Till I make up my mind, I am looking forward to another 5-day ride with Brenda to hang around in yet another small town and sample its wares. Mid September seems a nice time to ride off together for a spell. We enjoyed our last coddywomple to Taiping, and a week later to Malacca. Hence the mischievous thought of doing another one soon.

See you in the next one.

I Am Of Two Minds

Yes, it has been more than 6 months since I last logged in here. It seems that way when I am not flying. When the flying slows down, the blog suffers.When the flying seems non existent, the blog is a garveyard.

When I first faced my Decrease in Medical Fitness, I felt that my flying career had ended. Unceremoniously. But quite with the air of finality. I saw myself as being in the preludes to retirement. I still had till June to the end of my contract. Yet, seeing that my 6 months of being medically grounded was just about 4 weeks before that end, I saw myself slowly but surely fading from the world of aviation. 

My touch and go contact with another pilot who had had a bypass a year and a half ago seemed dismal and not at all forthcoming when I did enquire into his health and recovery. Perhaps his luck was not on his side, and I sympathised with him. It isn't easy being off payroll for about a year and recovering from a bypass isn't child's play. Besides, the time frame for recovery from a bypass is never the 6 months spelled out in the ICAO Document 8984. Nobody facing an uphill climb with one's health and consequently career, would want to repetiively explain the details of one's ailments and poor fortune in finding the way back into employment. I could well understand his choosing to ignore my messages.  And so I would feel resigned to reading the pilots' WhatsApp groupchat, inane as it is, and feel mysef on the outer orbit of a rather active circle. 

That's how it felt for the first 5 months of my DMF. And then, all too suddenly, it seemed like only two weeks away from the 15th of May, 6 months exacly from the date of my stent placement. I was due for a review of my stress test with my cardiologist and I could feel myself getting tense the way I always do on the brink of something ominous like a check ride. 

Betwixt all these, I got in touch with the new Flight Operations Manager who informed me that my contract was extended for another 6 months to December. Further extensions would be subject to me clearing my medical fitness and my check rides. Phew! I had just been granted wiggle room!

But I happenned to have cleared my stress test on the 15th of May. I was surprised. And hopeful. I arranged to see my Aviation Medical Examiner a few days after on the 17th. After taking my blood sample he undertook the task of taking my stress test results to the regulatory body and all I had to do was to wait for my DMF to be lifted.

I seem to have swung around in my perspective towards flying. I want to be back in the cockpit again. Yes, while before this I did feel like my days in the cockpit were over, clearing my stress test has given me some glimmer of hope that perhaps my last day in the cockpit is ahead of me rather than behind me. There is a part of me which wonders if I remember how to do offshore flying, or how to carry out rejected take offs or continued take offs from a single engine failure. Many pilots I have spoken to have told me not to worry about anything, that it will come back to me, so I am going to have to hang my doubts and proceed with an open mind.

That is, if I manage to clear jumping through the hoops ahead of me. I have the aircrew medical and my License Proficiency Check to deal with.

I hope that the current positive trend continues. Then I shall hang up my flying boots in a year.

The Battle For Everything

I have held my silence long enough I suppose. Well, not so much out of dereliction or negligence, but I was in need of time to wrap my head around these recent events which have left me feeling like I have no idea about the direction my life is taking me. Now I write, so that I may have them arranged in my mind, and I can say to myself, I have addressed it.

I left KK in early November. Returning to Kerteh meant a reacquaintance with its quirks, client requirements and generally, the feeling of being knocked back to the stone aged provinciality it so proudly is. One of those quirky client requirements is the Offshore Passport, a duplicitous medical check placed upon all offshore workers in order to be deemed fit for offshore installation work. Why they have imposed it on pilots in Kerteh who already have a special to profession aircrew medical, I do not know and my speculations are not polite. But, we are mere wage earners, and we merely comply.

And so I lined up at the clinic, with all manner of other folk to get my offshore passport medical check done. All seemed to go well, except that the doctor raised the matter of my age being past 60 years, and that I would require a stress test. I wasn't particularly peturbed, being a cyclist  and all, so I booked myself into a cardiologist's clinic in Kuantan at first, but the initial results and the dodgy old cantankerous cardiologist made me decide on seeking a second opinion in my neighbourhood private hospital in Seremban.

I was put with a nice young Chinese doctor who had cut his teeth in Institut Jantung Negara, no less. On the treadmill, right up to Stage Three, I was joking and bantering with the cardiac technician at 100% heart rate. When it was over, the cardiologist looked grimly at the graphical printout and sat me down for a chat. I had a feeling this wasn't going so well. He seemed concerned about the curvature on a particular line on the graph which he suspected indicated an abnormality in recovery speed from stress, which in turn, he linked to a possible blockage. He suggested an angiogram, and said he could arrange it for the morrow. So it was an early dinner that night, no favourite soju and no breakfast in the morning.

Early the next day, there I was on the table, fully aware of the wire going through my wrist and snaking its way into my heart. The cardiologist kept me briefed on each stage of the procedure, interspersed with his attempts at humorous banter with his nurses, up to the point when the warm dye was injected into my heart. After that they were quiet for a while, and I heard them conferring in hushed tones. I braced myself for the news.

Yes I had a serious blockage in my left anterior descending cardiac artery, exceeding 70%. They moved immediately for the angioplasty. Initially, the balloon didn't crack the calcification so they used a bladed balloon. The stent they put in was quite long too, at 36mm. Ah, never do anything in halves, right?

I was in the operating theatre for almost 2 hours. I am aware I caused a handful of people much worry. But such is the way things are when life changes in a flash. I was warded in their ICU for a night to be monitored, and the next day was subjected to another examination. Bloodwork was fair and the ultrasound showed my heart was functioning at 70%. If it wasn't for the six months mandatory medical leave and Decrease In Medical Fitness I had to declare to my licensing authority, I could have gone for another stress test in two weeks and tried to get my flying life back on track. Yes I am exaggerating but it's to describe the frustration of having no choice but to sit tight.

Alright, so I have joined the Stent Club now. Once you've done it, then you find out how many people you know have had a stent placement too. And it seems to be fairly common. It's not a prestigous club, but it has many members carrying on noiselessly with their lives.

Of course, in keeping with international civil aviation law, I am immediately suspended from exercising the privileges of my pilot's license, and cannot be considered for review in less than six months from the day of treatment, which was 15th November.

How I see it is this: I am not going to swing into action and double down on my books with the idea that when the hiatus is over, I will be able to mesh seamlessly into the flying world as if I had never left. I am grounded not because of a violation of company procedure or policy, but because I had a cardiac event.

And that is surely a message from the universe to step back a minute. The other senior pilots who had gone through this were encouraging of one thing alone: that I should take it easy for a while. Perhaps for many years I had been pushing too hard. Both in military service and civil life, I have had to chase uphill in both careers, if I can call them those. I was never particularly gifted, and the demographical barriers were constant, therefore pushing against the club members of the pressure groups which exist in these corridors was the only way I could take a step forward at a time though I often felt I was regressing. 

I am listening to the universe speak. I must back off for a while. I must rebuild my physical fitness and resilience. Also and especially since the kids are all employed, I must stop taking life too seriously, champing furiously at the bit. The battle for everything is over. I must now live for myself and for those whom I love.

This means, we're going riding!

Slice

Yes the axe has fallen. Our little base of operations is closed. We had the last remaining rig taken over by the other helicopter operator on 14 September. State politics is an avaricious beast disguised as parochial statesmanship. In reality it is anything but.

Everyone is in shock. The heavy hearts are reflected  in the shipping boxes being slowly and painfully filled with office items, desktop PCs, display monitors and filed records of our operations in KK. It is done,

Pilots and most engineers are being transferred to our alma mater in offshore operations, Kerteh. The cultural change will be massive. Back to a hovel where Grab food, Grab car and Grab Mart does not exist. Yes there is Grab food, comprising the wares you can find served streetside in the most provincial dishes all done in poor taste. The social scene is typical of conservatism under theocrats. Forget nightlife.

But it is a hovel I know. Kerteh and all its lacks can be managed. Kemaman is a 20 minute drive south where a more bustling food and kopitiam scene exists with Indian and Chinese food to satisfy the needs of those familiar with the better eateries of the west coast. Northward to Paka the Thai fusion Sawadee restaurant, ever popular, awaits us in a return to flawless dishes and comfort food. Their roast duck is second to none.

The KK experience was good. The gang at work was amiable, tiffs almost non existent with barbs well tempered by humour. The boys and girls who have not opted for the relocation will be certainly missed.

And in my sunset days, another misadventure awaits.

Turbulence

I know this is long overdue. I apologise for being engrossed in the repercussions of being restricted to the left hand seat over this duration, and the struggle in dealing with the surprising personality changes in the cockpit which followed.

This is my sincere prayer for the crew of SQ 321, the Singapore Airlines flight which encountered severe turbulence over the Myanmarese waters on 29 May 2024.

I always believe that any aircrew who have faced off to an in flight incident comes away a better pilot for it. There will be others who will inherit the from treasure of your misadventure.

I pray that you will weather your career storm and survive the corporate measures that will be served upon you. May you hold your courage under fire and remain as one crew till you reach the other side of these turbulent waters. May the changes which come upon you be the kind which make you better mates, no matter what voices speak to you when the nights have gone quiet and the hauntings resurface to make you second guess yourselves.

Forgive one another. Some things will never wash away with time, and perhaps they shouldn't, for whatever reasons eternity holds in place for you, May you one day as friends, well into the autums of your respective lives, raise your glasses together remembering that you made it to the ground intact.

Be well and fly high.

Say A Little Prayer

 23 April 2024.

A sad day. During a Royal Malaysian Navy Day parade rehearsal flypass, there was a mid air collision between an Agusta Westland AW139 and an Airbus Helicopters Fennec. There were no survivors.

Aircraft crashes attract a lot of attention. That's a universal fact. Flying machines command awe, in the air and on the ground. And certainly irresistibly draw the mind's eye when they come flailing to earth.

It is always and invariably, a tragedy.

The officers and men involved were too far downstream of my generation for me to have encountered them, but I regard their passing into the next with the same sense of loss and regret as I feel in regard of the many of my friends who have perished in service to the nation.

It is also in such times when the remotest of peoples suddenly remember that I am a pilot but it's not to ask if I am alright.

They text me for comment with an opening salvo of the most unsavoury presumptions.

The abrupt loss of life is a standalone tragedy. But adding insult to the crew's training, their knowledge, skills, aircraft and even straying so far as to insult the navy's hardware by quoting submarines which can't submerge is the hubris of those whose breadwinning is from the shelter of a coccoon. And by the way those submarines are fully operational and have been since their purchase in the early 2000s.

I have nothing to offer to even the curious, let alone the judgemental.

Too many, way too many pass the most brain dead comments such as "obviously human error", from watching a 15-second cellphone video capture of that dreadful mid air collision. If that's all it takes to identify the root cause and probable cause of an air mishap, I should burn my certificates in aircraft incident and accident investigation. Besides, that professional market is obviously saturated judging from the many air accident investigators mushrooming all over my phone display. I'll never be able to pull off a side hustle in this field.

Here's the best you can offer the dead who had to leave not knowing it would be their last sortie: say a prayer if you have one to offer. Do not disseminate the video amongst your group chats. Do not judge. I do believe these take less effort than the kilojoules expended in spreading falsehood and prejudice regarding a profession so fraught with risk even in the highly regulated world of civl aviation, let alone military aviation where the undertaking of risk is inherent with flying an aircraft to its full envelope, because the aircraft is their weapon in war.

I have always held the belief that a pilot involved in an air incident is a true asset to his wing, or his squadron. He has seen and experienced something and carries a learning value which has come at cost. Yes, I have had a few of my own and they are in earlier blogposts from before 2010. And perhaps a few after.

I believe that the deceased in this incident are the same. It is sad that we will not be privileged with learning about flying from their incident directly from their account. I am sure they would want to for the benefit of all other same type operators. On that token, may they find their peace where they are now.

New-Awakened

Dark have been my dreams of late (image courtesy of the web)

I have been away from my blog for eight months now. For most times, an absence from writing reflects an absence from flying. This is in part true, as from September of last year the oil and gas clients took advantage of the calmer waters over here to mobilise their workers by the more economical Fast Crew Boats rather than our aircraft. Let's remember that "fast" is relative, just as are cost savings. Then came the monsoon and the pace picked up rapidly around November. 

The restart of the offshore routine was mundane and gave me little to write about. Weather remained predictable. The drilling vessel Noble Viking wandered into our waters once again, operating up north in the Pekaka oil field. One aircraft captain had resigned from our tiny livery, upsetting the delicate balance of aircrew manning. HQ sent us a single set of crew to help on a rotational detachment basis while considering whether to make it a permanent transfer as uncertainties continued to hover over the longevity of our contract. Yes I hope you noticed what I did there.

But dark have been my dreams of late, since the final day of this leap year's February.

And I have since learned several important lessons. I have learned who my real friends are, as they kept in touch throughout this rather tempestuous time, providing encouragement when none was apparent. Accompanying that, perhaps friends in the place of those whom I believed to be, traditionally, lurking foes.

I have learned that many are those who present themselves as friends but when you are faced with calamity, they feed you to the sharks. Whatever has happenned to you is magically reinterprteted into being about how good they are, how you have screwed up in a way that they could never have. Okay, admittedly it isn't "they". It's just one person actually but certainly ypu've met that kind of person who is so full of himself that he counts as "they". Pronouns, anyone? It's kinda like mystery of the Trinity thing.

Dark indeed have been my dreams of late. I have not slept. Each day rolled into the other in a tunnel with seemingly no end and no light thereat. 

I have seen what can happen to those who have faced the rigours of this unforgiving industry and paced hither and tither in their dungeons of depression. There is the being overtaken by health complaints, the refuge of comfort eating and the lives they share with loved ones coming to a standstill with no vista of rejuvenation. It is all too easy for an incident to take over the kind of life we should be living. However, Gollum was right.

But we mustn't let him have it!

Other than for training being a soldier's best welfare, mapping a busy routine breaks the chokehold adversity has on you. I know I am no longer a soldier but as I fade away, the tennets of soldierly foundation guide me. Yeah right. I'm so full of it at times.

We took a trip to Chiang Mai. We explored new eateries. We got all three kids over here on a Raya visit and ate lobster. We walked both ways over the Jambatan Tamparuli. We reaffirmed the value of us. 

A tail end of life crisis

And "we" bought a bike. After nineteen years of being out of the saddle, it is very daunting sitting on one.  What a terrifying way to deny adversity getting a foothold over our lives. And almost as if by wizardry, I gained an immediate new perspective. I guess it is true what all committed riders claim: their therapist comes on two wheels. Part of me acknowledges that I must at some time, seek a certified therapist, not so much for answers, but to just speak unhesitantly about being cradled in the arms of The Grim Reaper for about 90 minutes on my daughter's birthday, but this Vulcan s650 will do handsomely for now.

It's not what I am. It's who I am. How do I teach that?

In all fairness, I am not slurring my rediscovered therapist on two wheels. I now have an utterly dangerous steed to befriend and in that, something to look forward to which I had long shelved in the name of paternal prudence. Also, I had erred in thinking that there is only one manifestation of myself, that the sum of all my parts, however paltry, or short on dignity, was being a pilot. Having been in this business since 1992, I suffered from Maverick-itis. I had allowed being in the cockpit to define my very being and whence comes my fulfilment. 

We never get over our first love, right? But also, while we don't all and sundry marry our first love, we move along. And we find unumaginable happiness.

That's it for today's waffling. I have a fearsome orange beast being delivered home as I write.

Sleep has returned to my once restless head. Please forgive both the waffling and the Top Gun Maverick/ The Lord Of The Rings references.

That is because dark have been my dreams of late. But I feel as new-awakened.

Oh Lord Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

I swear my intentions were good. I am safety trained with more than 30 years experience in safety work whether in flight safety or health, safety and environment issues.

In such spirit, I am a keen participant in the base's Hazard Hunts and my safety hazard and reportable incidents quota for both 2022 and 2023 are healthy.

Such was the eager spirit with which I attended the Hazard Hunt as periodically organised by our local HSE Department, 21 August. We assembled first for the FOD Walk, when we marched along our helicopter parking bay at Bay 27 Terminal 2, doing a ground sweep for Foreign Object Debris to prevent possible ingestion into the aircraft engines and the costly resultant, Foreign Object Damage.

After the glamourously named "pungut sampah" was over, our HSE Executive broke us up into groups for the hunt. We were supposed to look around our working areas and offices for various hazards, such as fire extinguishers lacking the periodic checks and annotations, exposed electrical wires, outdated notices, first aid kit expiries and the like.

In so small a working area as ours, I had reached my saturation level in hunting down hazards. Over the preceding year I had reported 5 hazards during my first Hazard hunt in KK and set myself rather above my quota for the first quarter of 2022.

So on this fateful day I did my walkabout with my group comprising the HR Exec and the HSE Exec, both feisty ladies. I wandered into the passenger briefing room and looked around. Nothing valid. To the pantry and well, dingy as it was, it remained spotless so again, nothing. I caught up with the girls in the admin office, meaning the HR Exec's domain and found them rifling through a medical box. The were methodically silent and isolated two vials of clear liquid.

"Sanitiser, Cap. Expire already" they explained. I swear I would never have thought of rummaging through the admin office save for what immediately meets the eye. I go about my business treating individual offices as....well, private spaces.

Just outside the admin office was a Break Glass Call Point. It looked dated and unreliable. On looks alone.

"This seems odd ya?" I mused while opining at the HR Exec. "The glass seems to be in contact with the background, and doesn't even feel like glass. There is no striker for breaking the glass." My finger ran over the centre of what felt like a plastic cover sitting on the call point, hoping to feel the reassuring stud of the alarm button behind it. I shook my head at her and said, "Nah, I wouldn't be surprised if this were a dummy call point."

And right then, to my horror and embarassment the plastic cover cracked and the alarm went off with a loud, continuous and rather outraged ring.

It may as well have been a Untited States nuclear launch, because the Pavolvian response of everyone in sight pouring out of their individual offices was as unstoppable as it was irreversible. As I walked towards the Aviation Security desk to confess, I beheld the enormity of what I had done. This wasn't just my company boys and girls evacuating. I watched with my face turning ever deeper shades of scarlet as offshore passengers, our neighbouring company staff and pilots and virtually everyone in the terminal inclusive of janitors went obediently towards the assembly point. It was as if everyone had fled for their very lives. Which would have been rather the point of the whole drill.

The AFRS boys met with me, relieved that their panic was merely at the hands of a bumbling nitwit. "Panik bah saya tadi Cap!" they sighed and followed up with giggling. This only delayed my face from returning to its usual pallor. They were happy and satisfied at such a simple cause for the alarm and had nothing more for me. Having owned up to being the culprit, I joined the rest at the assembly area to be accounted for. The magnitude of my bumbling hit me for a second time as I saw our neighbouring company's Flight Ops Manager, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Exec Officer, et al, blinking uncomfortably under the glaring sun at their designated assembly point.

Aviation Security met with each group's coordinator and checked the head count. All was rapidly settled and then we were allowed to disperse.

But the meighbour's pilots, who were also my former squadron mates, took it in gentemanly good humour.

"Hey, Captain Jeff, I heard something about this captain, entah siapa he is lah, who triggered the fire alarm. We are under audit now, with all the auditors watching so many of us panicking. But I will do him a favour and cover him, entah siapa he is, if you help me cover with makan-makan for us lah..."

A Break Glass Call Point, with shattered glass. This is at Kokol Hill Resort and was not my fault.

I will say this: we are at a point when the company's existence in KK hangs in the balance. State politics has dictated to us that come 2024, in the spirit of Malaysia Madani, only state owned aviation companies shall operate the privilege of offshore oil and gas flights. I am very possibly witnessing my last days in my beloved Kota Kinabalu.

So it appears that triggering the alarm may have been the last thing I do in Sabah.