Malaysian Civil Defence officer remembers the JAL plane crash of 1977

A file picture of the JAL DC-8 crash at Elmina Estate in 1977.

I am a Civil Defence officer by profession who retired from the Department of Civil Defence Malaysia in 1993. In brief, the activities of this department are related to disaster relief. The department maintains a corps of Civil Defence (CD) personnel duly trained, uniformed and disciplined to respond to disasters and similar emergencies.

During the tenure of my service, I was involved in a number of disaster relief activities, including two major disasters. They were the Japan Airlines (JAL) aircrash of September 1977 and the Highland Towers tragedy that occurred on Dec 11 in 1993. These events and scenes remained in my mind for some time, and some unforgettable scenes linger on even now.