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මෙහි සිංහල ලිපිය මීට දින කීපයකට කලින් පලවිය එය මෙතැනින් කියවන්න
There are several ways of travelling in the world namely road travel, rail travel, sea travel and air travel.People face so many mishaps by using these mode of travels like road accidents, railway accidents,sinking of ships and air crashes.Out of all these accidents except air crashes other accidents have a little chance of surviving.In most of the air crashes in the world,passengers have escaped death in a very few accidents

Sapta Kanya hills
 As far as the major air crashes in the world are concerned one of the biggest air crash happened in Sri Lanka too.
Mr.R.H.Ranaweera, a building technician is an eye witness of this air crash which happened at Sapta Kanya mountain (seven virgin hills) near Maskeliya on 4th December 1974 that started its journey from Surabaya in Indonesia carrying 182 passengers and 9 crew members.Its destination was Jeddah and all the passengers were Indonesian Haj Pilgrims to Mecca.The plane was sheduled to land at Bandaranayake International air port on its way.The  air craft belonged to Netherlands and It had been hired by Indonesia for taking pilgrims.

Mr.Ranaweera with the part of the plane
 he picked up at the scene
According to Ranaweera he is the first person who saw this accident and to prove this he had prepared a map those days of  the altitude of the plane when it crashed against the hills and in addition to that he has a mechanical instrument of the plane he picked up at the scene.Apart from that some of the friends and relatives of the victims had sent him letters requesting more and more details about the crash.
Speaking to the media Ranweera said, I can give the details of this air crash as the first one who saw it to help the friends and relations of victims of this tragedy.
Ranaweera who was a resident at Mohottigoda Ganapola was about 16 years old at that time and working in a bakery in Hapugastanna tea estate which is in the close proximity of Sapta Kanya or Seven Virgin hills.
Describing the incident he said, "On this ill fated day I was working in the night in the bakery.At that time it was a small village. At about 9 P.M. residents go to sleep. While I was working in the bakery I came out to have a rest. When I came out of the bakery the time was 10.10 P.M. and I can vividly remember it. When I came out I heard a drone of a plane but the plane was not visible, about two minutes later the plane appeared in the sky.All the houses in the village was closed only the bakery was open.The plane looked like a big monster as it flew very low as high as the height of a coconut tree. Actually I rather had a doubt as to why this plane was coming so low.
I could see the air craft that of  the size of a bus.It was flying in the thick dark and I heard a loud noise of a bell from the air craft. In addition to that a red light was flashing like that of and ambulance or a fire brigade vehicle.

The pictures of how the plane crashed against the mountains
Now the plane was heading for the hills. I understood from the sound of the bell and the red flash of the air craft that the plane was in a danger. I thought the plane had a problem of flying high and I certainly knew that any moment the plane would crash against the hills.I had a great fear as well as inexpressible sadness about the passengers of the plane.I was in the thick dark.
As I expected the left wing of the plane touched the first hill and was broken and lost its balance.Next time its nose hit the another hillock and ended in a big fire ball with a very big noise.I heard the sound of splitting sound of the plane's body while it  was ablaze.
Hearing the big noise the whole village waked up. But they new nothing about the incident but they saw only the big fire on the top of the hill.I told them what I saw.Then only they knew that it was an air craft that was ablaze on the hills.
Some of them suggested to climb the hill.But it couldn't be done as there was not even a foot path to the hills. The hill was covered with thick forest. So some people told that they would climb the mountain by the following day.
At the dawn of the following day some people had climbed the mountain making foot paths They rolled stones from the top of the mountain to stop other people reaching the mountain because some of them wanted to steal the money and valuables of the victims.They were collecting destroyed parts of the plane too. Some of them sold them to the people.
I was a young boy then and the vigour of my youth did not deter me from climbing the mountain.
Following day when I reached the top of the hill and Air Force helicopter had come and the air force soldiers were controlling the large crowd who gathered there to witness the scene.They collected all the bags of the victims which looked like small hill.I saw about fifty  charred dead bodies. It was an unbearable shock to me.The Air force guarded the scene and brought down some pieces of the ill fated plane. At the scene I also picked up a part of the plane which I later came to know as a part of the engine.
I climbed down the hill with a heavy heart.These passenger were pilgrims.They were going for a good motive, to pray for the benefit of the mankind.But the fate was cruel enough to wrest their lives from their dear ones.
After several days I prepared a picture of the plane, how I saw the plane,its altitude and how it crashed against the mountain.
The piece of metal which is said to be a gear lever of the plane,is still with me carefully preserved in a glass frame prepared by me.
Those days some relatives and friends of the victims who came to know me as an eye witness of this tragedy wrote to me.These were innocent pilgrims. The man's foremost duty is to serve the man.So if anybody is wishing to get further details of this air crash for the benefit of the victims' families I am ready to help them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------M.Nelson Piyaratne 


17 comments:

  1. Needless to say this kind of stories are always interesting.but unfortunately in this case, all are same rotten stories..I have read a lot and lot about this DC 8 air crash. No one is trying to talk about something new.very rare on the technical background of the crash. I haven't seen much on the black box investigation either.

    any way thanks for the time

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agree with you . ''something like Air Crash Investigations''

      But , it is too late for that.

      Delete
    2. Yes i'm agree with borth of you.

      Delete
  2. කන්දේ හැපුන මහ වනන්තරේ.
    ඩී සී අට ගුවන් යන්තරේ.
    මරුවා කල විපතේ- බේරෙන්න බැහැ සසරේ
    කාගෙද මට වරද නොතේරේ ...

    මට ඔය ගීය මතක් උනා.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. මටත් මතක් වුනා මින්.

      Delete
  3. මේකේ තවම බ්ලැක් බොක්ස් එක හොයාගෙන නෑ නේද?
    Visit හතරවරම් | Hatharavaram

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. මා ඒ ගැන හරියටම දන්නේ නැ.

      Delete
  4. reading this I feel really sorry for the people who caught by death.this man would be very unfortunatly to watch it happening infront of his eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Black Box එකත් ලංකාවෙ උන් විකුණන්න ඇති :D
    මේක ගැන පහුගිය කාලෙ රිවිර පත්තරේද කොහෙද ගියා.. මොකෝ ඉංග්‍රීසියෙන් ලියන්න හිතුනේ......?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. පත්තර කීපයකම ගියා යසිත්..

      Delete
  6. මේකේ බ්ලැක් බොක්ස් එක හොයාගෙන නෑලු නේද?? අපේ IATA ක්ලාස් එකකදිත් ඕක ගැන කිව්වා.. අර සිංදුව...ඒක අපි අහලා නෑනේ.. //කන්දේ හැපුනා මහ වනන්තරේ//

    ReplyDelete
  7. කඩ්ඩෙයි මගෙයි සම්බන්ධයක් නැති නිසා ඔන්න සිංහල පෝස්ටුව කියෝලා සිංහලෙං ලියල ගියා.........

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mr Ranaweera has prepared all the details of this accident which he saw about 43 years ago. He was waiting for media to come and meet him for a long time.
    This is the correct mobile no of Mr Ranaweera - 0711059990

    ReplyDelete

මගේ මේ පුංචි වෑයම පිළිබඳ අදහසක් දැක්වුවොත් එය මට විශාල ශක්තියක්.මල් මෙන්ම ගල් වුව කම් නැත.

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