THE MAN WHO COULD NOT BE PREZ
Philip Upali Wijewardena was born into a wealthy family in Matara, Sri Lanka on 17 February 1938. He was educated at Royal College Colombo and Queens’ College, University of Cambridge UK.
Upali was a millionaire by age 26. He invested in real estate; in coconut plantations, tea and rubber estates and other vast agricultural acreage throughout Southeast Asia. He also had business interests that ranged from Vehicle manufacturing to Confectionary plants to Airline Operations. Upali was well known for his skill in buying companies in the brink of bankruptcy and making them successful. Yet, he was secretive about his business matters and had only one assistant who knew the true intricacies of the company’s inner workings.
When Upali opened a small chocolate factory, with the brand name KANDOS, it captured the Sri Lankan market, and expanded and thrived in Singapore and Malaysia. The toffees produced by his confectionery factory are still famous throughout Sri Lanka.
In 1968 Upali founded UPALI AIR, but did not begin air operations until almost a decade later.
1978
A decade later, at a meeting in the Upali Group office on Bloemendahl Road, Kotahena, Upali informs his team that he intends to rekindle his aviation venture in conjunction with the Upali Group. He was seeking to buy a suitable light aircraft or a helicopter with a seating capacity for 5–8 passengers. The advisory team which included Capt. Mani Seneviratne, Ananda Pelimuhandiram, (Eng) Hugh Dusty Dassanayake and Upali’s father-in-law Seevali Ratwatte recommended the purchase of a Bell Long Ranger, with the SLAF supplying technical back-up at a cost.
In November 1978, Upali bought Sri Lanka’s first and only Bell Long Ranger helicopter from Bell Texas. At this time, the Upali Group was also awarded the Bell helicopter distributorship in Sri Lanka.
When Upali wanted to base his helicopter operation at Homagama, (where the Group had a large factory), Mr Manes Felix, Assistant Director of Civil Aviation Operations suggested Ratmalana airport instead, where the facilities were better. The LongRanger was used for tourism flights in conjunction with Helitours (SLAF). The SLAF permitted Upali to store fuel at their airbases, make use of SLAF personnel to handle the helicopter and take off from the SLAF grounds in Parsons Road. However, as a civil operator, Upali had to abide by all the regulations, and provide insurance coverage unlike the SLAF.
Upali hired Capt. Mani Seneviratne as his Manager and chief helicopter pilot. The pilots who joined the helicopter operation thereafter are Sudarshan Manamperi, Eric Berger (a German national), Mahes Gunatillake and Osmund Paul.
The LongRanger was often hired by the BBC crew whenever they visited Sri Lanka to film documentaries. Arthur C. Clarke was a famous passenger on board when the BBC crew were making the TV series “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysteries of the Universe”.
1979
In January 1979 Upali bought a Cessna 206 through Heli-Orient Singapore (the South East Asia agent for Bell and Cessna) which two Heli-Orient pilots ferried to Colombo from Singapore. This was the beginning of ‘Upali Aviation’. At this time, the Cessna company in Wichita, Kansas appointed the Upali Group as the handling agent for Cessna products in Sri Lanka.
In June 1979, Upali bought a Cessna Citation, through Heli-Orient. It was owned by Upali-USA and registered in America. The maintenance was through Upali-Singapore by Heli-Orient. The Citation was housed by Upali-Sri Lanka and flown by ex SLAF MiG pilot Noel Anandappa and ex Air Ceylon pilot Yogendran. Both pilots had to convert to FAA licenses to fly the Citation. At this time Upali got a Cessna 152 as commission on the purchase of the Citation.
Upali Aviation was awarded the right to operate domestic services, but not regional services, which was awarded to Air Lanka. At this time, with the help of Dusty Dassanayake, more aviation personnel were recruited to Upali Aviation. Vincent Fernando (airframes), Lional Jayatillake (engines), Ratnayake (radio) and expert technicians Solomon Fernando, Balachandran and Fredrick Silva — all ex-SLAF.
In 1979 when the government called for bidders to operate domestic sectors, Upali suggested that the new airline — Air Lanka, take whatever they wished from the defunct national carrier Air Ceylon, and leave whatever they did not require. Upali Aviation could use the equipment they leave behind. Upali also wished to use the name “Air Ceylon” for his private domestic operation. Air Ceylon|Air Lanka would retain all the landing rights around the world. Upali also wanted to take over the Trident, and obtain two more Fokker F-27 Friendships for his domestic operation. However, President J.R. Jayawardene (who was Upali’s cousin) told him that no other airline would be allowed to operate as “Air Ceylon”. The name ‘Air Ceylon’ would be completely scrapped.
Upali then went ahead and bought a brand new 20-seat De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter from Canada. Pilots, Sidney de Zoysa, Senerath Wattewewa and Pancha Nadarajah (all ex-Air Ceylon), and Cecil Marambe from the SLAF were hired for the Twin Otter operation. Noel Anandappa became Chief Pilot with Yogendran assisting him. A Canadian instructor carried out the conversion of all pilots to the Twin Otter.
Twin Otter services commenced in April 1980, initially to Jaffna and Trinco. (Batticaloa airport was not open at the time because of damage to the airfield caused by a cyclone at the time)
Upali proposed to the Chairman of the Airport Facilities Committee, Gen. Sepala Attygalle, that he would build a passenger terminal and supporting infrastructure at Batticaloa in return for a five-year agreement to waive rental and landing fees at Batticaloa. Holcomb, the British General Manager of the Airport Facilities Committee approved this proposal. [Holcomb was a Chartered Institute of Transport qualified ‘expert’ who had been brought to Sri Lanka. He was a line manager at Heathrow prior to this appointment]
Services to Batti’ proved very successful for Upali, because Passekudah was booming as a tourist resort, and passenger loads were good. Upali applied to carry mail between Colombo, Jaffna and Batticaloa, but was rejected. The inability to cash government railway warrants to buy air tickets also kept many potential government servants and MPs away from the Upali air service to Jaffna.
The Twin Otter service operated out of Ratmalana, as Upali was refused permission to operate from Katunayake. Services to Anuradhapura were operated on demand. If there were passengers waiting to board at A’pura, Air Traffic Control would radio the flight 20 minutes before approaching A’pura, and request the aircraft to land). Passenger loads to Jaffna were poor because the air fare of LKR650 (return) was considered high and unaffordable by the average traveller at the time.
In 1982 Upali sold the Cessna Citation due to lack of range on long-distance flights to places like Australia, where Upali had business interests. In its place a Learjet 51 was purchased, which was able to fly nonstop from Colombo to Perth, Western Australia. The Learjet was maintained at Essendon airport, Melbourne by Bib Stilwell. Minor maintenance was carried out at Singapore.
1983
On Monday January 31, 1983, Upali departed on a flight to Singapore in the Lear Jet. Upali Group Director Ananda Pelimuhandiram was already in Singapore at the time chasing up the printing of a large quantity of air tickets for the airline as well as sourcing some urgent aircraft spare parts. He completed his work and joined his boss that evening, to fly to Malaysia. Once they arrived in Kuala Lumpur Upali decided to extend his stay in Malaysia and thus re-scheduled the return flight to Colombo for Sunday February 13th instead of February 7th as per the original plan.
On February 13th 1983, the Lear jet bound for Colombo took off from Subang International airport (KUL) Kuala Lampur at 20:41 carrying Upali, Pelimuhandiram and Upali’s friend Sri Lankan born Malaysian lawyer S.M. Ratnam (who had not been to Sri Lanka for 30 years). The crew were Capt. Noel Francis Ignatius Anandappa, First Officer Sidney de Zoysa and steward S. Senanayake.
Eleven minutes after take-off , the pilots requested to climb to FL270. They reported to Subang ATC passing through FL250 and was to report top of climb and contact Medan ATC. Malaysian radar reported that the jet was cruising at 400 knots over the Indian Ocean. At 21:02 the aircraft suddenly shattered the speed of sound at 730 knots before it lost all radar and radio communication. Butterworth airbase in Malaysia confirmed that they saw the radar blip of the Learjet suddenly disappear from their screens.
ATC declared an emergency assuming there was a radio problem. Within two minutes of the emergency being declared, Japan responded, alerting their Search and Rescue services. After seven minutes, the USA responded by deploying their vessels from the Seventh Fleet in the area to search for the missing aircraft. There was no response from Malaysia.
Back in Sri Lanka the Upali staff who had received the flight plan for the Learjet, including the ETA for Katunayake continued to wait at the KAT control tower. But there were no further reports from the aircraft. A Swissair flight in the vicinity also tried to contact the Learjet, but there was no response.
Some fishermen in the tiny Indonesian village of Tanjung Beringin who were on an evening catch on that dark moonless night, claim that the sky was lit by a red light. It didn’t sound like a plane. “It” appeared to be on fire and dipped and crashed into the water. The loud explosion rocked the sea. Huge waves rocked the fishing boats. [John Fernandez, New Straits Times, 1983]. The fishermen decided to stay away from the crash site located one mile away from their wooden outriggers.
The next morning, the Malaysian Director of Civil Aviation said that he knew what had happened to the aircraft, and that when the time was right, he would speak out. He was immediately reprimanded by his government.
At this time, the fishermen ventured to the scene and discovered a packet of bread near the crash site. They also found debris that looked like the wing of a plane and a blood-stained part of a door. The fishermen tried to carry the wing on their boats but it was too big and heavy. It took four days for the fishermen’s news to reach authorities, and to add to the confusion, a spare wheel from the Learjet was found 100 km away from the fishing village. The fisherman insisted the wheel was brought down by strong undercurrents.
On February 19th 1983, a survival pack, believed to be from the Learjet, was found. On February 21st 1983, an aircraft wheel was discovered near the Pulau Pandung islands. However, it was not manufactured by the Lear Jet company. Later, a spare tyre believed to be from the Learjet was found in the sea, with some scorch marks. The only other item found was a man’s gold ring in the bowels of a fish. Everybody immediately claimed that the ring belonged to Upali Wijewardene!
Six months of extensive search operations by air and naval units of seven countries failed to locate any evidence of a crash. Specially trained detectives from India and the Soviet Union, air units from Sri Lanka aided by military assets such as an American Orion spy plane, Australian warships, Indonesian mine sweepers and Malaysian patrol boats yielded no results. The searchers covered some 200 miles of sea, mountains, and unpopulated areas of Sumatra. The investigators claimed that the information received from fishermen was sketchy and too late.
Experts surmised that the jet may have exploded mid-air. However, to date, the fate that befell the Lear Jet and its seven souls on board remains a mystery. The richest man in Sri Lanka and his Learjet 35A simply disappeared on February 13, 1983.
Other companies of the Upali group continued operating after Upali’s “disappearance” in February 1983, when he was only 45 years old. However, the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in July 1983, spelled doom for this small airline. The increased controls and security measures, along with the conversion of the civilian airfield Ratmalana into a military base for the Sri Lankan Air Force, made Upali Air’s operation no longer viable.
The ethnic riots which broke out in July 1983, effectively put an end to travel to and from Jaffna. Services continued to Trinco and Batticaloa, until Trinco became a amber-zone and the airforce stopped civilian flights into China Bay. This led to the sale of the Twin Otter, and all Upali Aviation domestic operations ceased by the end of 1983. At this time, Upali Aviation commissioned Capt. Chira Fernando to establish a flying school for them,to keep the company going.
