Malaysia sacks top aviation official over radar fire

Malaysia sacks top aviation official over radar fire

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The Malaysian cabinet has ordered the
removal of a top aviation official 11 days after a third blaze in
two years at the nation's premier airport damaged a radar and
plunged flights into chaos, local news reports said yesterday.

Zaludin Sulong, 53, was removed late Wednesday as director-
general of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), which comes
under the jurisdiction of Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik.

Ling himself was last week pressured by the powerful youth
wing of Premier Mahathir Mohamad's United Malays National
Organization (UMNO), as well as key opposition parties, to resign
after the Aug. 13 fire.

The fire, the third to hit the Subang international airport in
two years, knocked out the 16.5-million-ringgit (US$6.4 million)
radar delivered to Malaysia in December 1992 by Thomson-CSF of
France.

A senior transport ministry official, when contacted Thursday,
said the decision to transfer Zaludin was made by the cabinet at
Wednesday's weekly meeting chaired by Mahathir.

"I have nothing to say. I will be reporting to the PSD (Public
Services Department)," Zaludin was quoted as saying yesterday,
shortly after he had granted an interview to the local media "to
give his side of the story."

Hot seat

"I entered the DCA job in a baptism of fire," said Zaludin,
before the axe fell on the veteran civil servant who had assumed
the "hot seat" soon after the DCA's air traffic control center
was destroyed by fire in October 1992.

Zaludin, who reportedly said the order did not surprise him
after almost 30 years' of government service, is expected to join
PSD's "pool of officers" to await his next posting.

"I am taking everything in my stride," said a seemingly
sporting Zaludin, whose department had earlier been accused of
trying to cover-up the blaze by first dismissing the incident as
a "bush fire" and later as a "minor fire."

Zaludin told the local media he informed Ling 10 minutes after
being told of the fire that night, adding it was not his job to
inform the prime minister.

A fuming Mahathir last week slammed "the authorities" for
their approach to airport safety and security, and had sharply
criticized airport officials for incompetence and inefficiency,
saying he only learnt of the fire from newspaper reports.

The fire was blamed on a short circuit in the air-conditioning
system and the failure of the fire-detection and suppression
system to release halon gas.

Ling, asked to comment on calls for his removal, said: "I was
appointed by the prime minister. I will therefore accept any
decision made by the prime minister."

Since the fire, air traffic controllers have had to resort to
non-radar landing procedures, causing long delays for outgoing
and incoming flights.