THE PILOT- By Capt Elmo Jayawardena Source:Island The UNHRC is in full swing. The ‘merchants of Geneva’ are getting ready to shoot their arrows of justice against the offenders of this planet. Of course, it is done democratically, by honourable people in Saville Row suits who sit around polished mahogany tables and determine by a count of votes who is guilty and who is not. That is the show-piece; but the truth could be so very different. Powerful people call the tune, and the theme is “You lend me your mule and I will remember you when it is your turn to take the stand. Then I’ll lend you my donkey.” We must try and remember the beginning of all this when the powers that were initiated the Treaty of Berlin in 1885 to carve out the African continent. The newer version of protecting human rights was born after the ...
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THE PILOT – by Capt Elmo Jayawardena The UNHRC is in full swing. The ‘merchants of Geneva’ are getting ready to shoot their arrows of justice against the offenders of this planet. Of course, it is done democratically, by honorable people in Saville Row suits who sit around polished mahogany tables and determine by a count of votes who is guilty and who is not. That is the show-piece; but the truth could be so very different. Powerful people call the tune, and the theme is “You lend me your mule and I will remember you when it is your turn to take the stand. Then I’ll lend you my donkey.” We must try and remember the beginning of all this when the powers that were initiated the Treaty of Berlin in 1885 to carve out the African continent. The newer version of protecting human rights was born after the ...
A TALE OF THREE AEROPLANES The present-day sky is crowded. Airways crisscross above continents and oceans and are severely congested with all kinds of aeroplanes carrying passengers and cargo. Then someone crashes, people die, and we say “What a shame!” The manufacturers start defending their aeroplane, the insurance companies look for loopholes to creep through and save their bacon. Of course, there is always the ever-present ‘pilot error’ verdict to take the final blame. That is what happens in air crashes and crash causes. The dying or the surviving is seldom man-made. It is all done upstairs and has little to do with what we deduce from what we know or hear. I’ve seen enough of the sky and what happens in it to figure that out. August 7th,1997, a Fine Air DC-8-61F took off from Miami International on a direct flight to Santo Domingo. It was a ...
Feb 28, 2021
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Tagged Capt Elmo Jayawardena, DC-3, pilot error, Ratmalana
THE SINGER, NOT JUST THE SONG-By Capt Elmo Jayawardena Source:Island As for those who flew the sleek, fully aerobatic machine, undoubtedly the most flamboyant was Paulis Appuhamy, the Bus Mudalali from Attanagalle. He obtained his Private Pilot’s Licence, flying in his Palayacart Sarong and pressing rudders with his bare feet. Paulis had his long hair tied in a knot at the back of his head. No, he did not speak any fluent English, barely managed to read the checklist. He needed no short-cuts either, went through the whole flying school rigmarole to obtain a pilot’s licence. If anyone broke the pseudo-sophisticated conceit of flying aeroplanes, it was Paulis Appuhamy. I know of no other person who had such determination to become a pilot and succeeded doing so with flying colours. Recently, I received a gift of a book. The name on the cover said ‘de Havilland Chipmunk’, a comprehensive narration ...
Feb 12, 2021
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Articles, Capt Elmo Jayawardena
Tagged Capt Elmo Jayawardena, Walpola Bamunakotuwa
BOI KOLLO – AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY – by Capt Elmo Jayawardena He first went to work at the very tender age of six, just a little kid, that much Yoga re-called. He had attended a village school for two days and quit – said he could not understand anything the teacher taught. That was good enough a reason for Yoga to obliterate any form of education from his entire life and become illiterate. They lived in the Southerland Estate, a remnant of the British Colonial system. Estate labourers’ ‘line-shacks’ had limited room for the family. The little boy was an inconvenience that needed to be sorted out. Of course, he was an ill-affordable extra mouth to feed in the already over-crowded one-roomed hovel they called home. That is how Yoga left his Southerland Mansion to commence his lifetime career of servitude as a Boi Kolla (BK) to run and ...
Capt. Elmo Jayawardena Chronicles -Ehelepola Adhikaram Tomb The SIA jumbo turned for the final approach on Plaisance International Airport. The night was cloudy and listless, the sky was demanding with a stratocumulus overcast. There was moderate rain over the airfield. My copilot who was flying the aeroplane was an experienced operator and he landed the big Boeing 747 with professional skill that received applause from the passengers. We taxied and parked in front of the terminal. It was almost midnight; I’ve arrived in the island of Mauritius, not merely as a pilot but to start another one of my wild goose chases. This one was a peach. I was going to look for Ehelepola’s grave. The first Prime Minister of the last King of Kandy, who I read somewhere, was buried in the island of Mauritius. ...
Capt. Elmo Jayawardena Chronicles – Paradise Misplaced Our island was called Lanka in pre King Vijaya times. Valmiki’s immortal Ramayanaya had King Ravana ruling the land from the city of Lankapura . That was almost four thousand years ago. The Arab traders termed it Jaziratul-Yaqut, island of rubies. Some called it Serandip, some Ceilan, from which the Portuguese picked Ceilao and the European map-makers coined Ceylon. Many were the names from the many that came, and they all were collective in their comment in the description of this land. Bar none, everyone agreed and noted in their chronicles that this island was indeed the complete Paradise. We never gained it. Let’s be honest about that part. We simply inherited. The Gods from their celestial dome, in their infinite kindness, gifted this Paradise to us, the beautiful island of Lanka, to the people of Sri Lanka . ...
CHRISTMAS BENEATH THE CORONA CLOUD – by Capt Elmo Jayawardena It looks like when the Silver Bells ring this year and Silent Night takes the air Santa himself will be struggling to do his rounds with possible curfew and lockdowns. Corona has tortured the entire world in absolute mean measures and is now getting ready for the final kill. The pandemic is going to ruin our festive season like never before. It is nobody’s fault but that is how fate had decided to throw the dice. Of course, in many countries the battle against Corona raged yo-yoing between winning and losing. Most preventive actions and Covid 19 treatments were more like Russian Roulette, the medical world was fighting against time to find a cure. The unknown menace was spreading and killing people. That has been the story of the year 2020 for most, a time of trauma and sorrow that ...
A SAD NIGHT TO REMEMBER – by Capt Elmo Jayawardena Martinair DC-8 4th of December 1974 a DC-8 aircraft belonging to Martinair crashed into the Anjimalai mountain range also known as the Seven Virgins. The accident happened around 1015 PM and the location was in the vicinity of Maskeliya. This was the worst air disaster that had taken place in Sri Lanka. 191 lives were lost with no survivors. That is how the 4th of December became a sad night to remember. Corona curfews give us time to read and in my isolation at home I have been pulling out ‘Bucket-listed’ stories to munch. Most articles I browsed through about the Martinair DC-8 crash had covered all aspects of this horrible disaster. Adequate details were available to re-construct the story and come to reasonable conclusions of what may have happened. We all know the easy way out of most aeroplane ...
Nov 30, 2020
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Articles, Capt Elmo Jayawardena
Tagged Banda Archi, Capt Elmo Jayawardena, Elmo Jayawardena, Seven Virgins mountain
The Nicosia Tragedy – lest such be forgotten-By Capt Elmo Jayawardena Source:Island It was a lazy April morning in Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport. The Globe Air Charter flight carrying 120 Swiss and German passengers was about to taxi out for takeoff. The planned journey was long, starting in Thailand and ending up in Switzerland, with re-fueling stops in Colombo, Bombay and Cairo, before flying the last leg to its destination – Basel. The plane carried 10 crew – five in the cabin and five in the cockpit, comprising three pilots and two flight engineers, what they called a heavy crew to fly multi-sector long haul flights. In command was Capt. St Elmo Muller, a Ceylonese pilot who had served in the RAF during the second world war. Capt. Muller was born in Colombo and educated at St. Joseph’s College. He learnt to fly as a teenager and obtained an ‘A’ ...
Nov 14, 2020
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Tagged Capt Elmo Jayawardena, Capt. St Elmo Muller, Don Muang Airport
