The MMEA Bombardier CL-415 last saw action during the Kuala Baram peat soil and firest fires. File Photo
KUCHING: Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) Sarawak director First Admiral Robert Teh Geok Chuan said the flight mission involving the Bombardier CL-415 aircraft to put out forest fires that was scheduled on Wednesday will be postponed to Saturday.
The aircraft owned by MMEA is now at the Air Force base here undergoing routine maintenance.
Teh said the water bombing operation was halted on Wednesday because of limited visibility and other obstacles, forcing the operation team to instead conduct area reconnaissance ahead of their mission.
“Today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) we will conduct routine maintenance in Kuching and the aircraft is expected to be operational by 12pm on Saturday. It will resume (its mission) after the routine maintenance. It will take 45 minutes to fly from the Air Force base here (Kuching) to Sri Aman,” he told The Borneo Post today.
According to news agency Bernama on Wednesday, the water bombing operation using the aircraft at Kampung STC Sri Aman had to be postponed due to “unavoidable circumstances”.
Quoting Sarawak Fire Assistant Director (Operations) Tiong Ling Hii, the report said the low tide in the river as well as fishing activities and passing boats had made it difficult for the aircraft to fly low and obtain water.
The CL-415 aircraft specialises in scooping up water and can drop a total of 6,000 litres of water on a single run without having to return to base.
It is able to refill its load in about 12 seconds in a body of water, which includes the open sea, rivers or lakes.
“In addition, the aircraft has also reached its flight time limit and requires maintenance before returning to operation. The operation will continue once the river is completely free of all obstacles and the aircraft is ready to fly,” Tiong was quoted as saying.
After announcing the cancellation of the fire fighting operation using the aircraft, the fire department at the scene resumed efforts to extinguish the fires with a force of 15 personnel per shift.
As at 12pm today, six divisions registered an very unhealthy air quality level with Kuching with the highest API reading at 270 and followed by Sibu (245), Sarikei (237), Samarahan (224), Sri Aman (212) and Mukah (208).
Areas registering unhealthy API reading are Bintulu at 147 and followed by Samalaju (134), Miri (107) while areas registering moderate API reading are Limbang (81), Kapit (96) and SK Baram (95) as at 12pm yesterday, according to a press statement by State Disaster Management Committee (JPBN) secretariat office.
A total of nine hotspots are found in Sarawak (one in Belaga, two in Marudi and six in Tatau) compared to Kalimantan (788) and Sumatera (261) in Indonesia.
In terms of visibility Kuching has the worst at only 500m, compared to Miri at 6km.
In between these two areas, Kapit registered a visibility reading of 4km, Mulu (3.5km), Limbang (3km), Bintulu (2.5km), Sibu (2km) and Sri Aman (2km). A normal visibility reading is 10km and above.