May 17 is a date that Datuk Abdul Malek Abdul Hamid is not likely to forget.
Thirty-four years ago on this day — also a Wednesday — Malek, then a 40-year-old police Superintendent and a deputy commander with the Marine Police, was on a short flight back to Subang Airport from Kuantan after a one-day meeting and a round of golf.
With him on the nine-seater Pilatus Porter aircraft were three other senior police officers, the pilot, co-pilot and an observer when the aircraft suddenly nose-dived and crashed onto a car on the Subang Highway, killing all in the plane, leaving him the sole survivor.
A 6-year-old boy in the Proton Saga also died.
Listening to Malek relating the events that happened on that night in 1989, it was as if the tragedy had occurred only yesterday.
I met Malek, now 74 and chairman of Maju Engineering Services Sdn Bhd and director of Landmarks Bhd, and his wife, Datin Norhayati Mohd Nor, who were in the United Kingdom visiting their daughter, Dr Noor Nazurah.
It was a chance mention of the incident that piqued my interest. What unravelled was a chain of coincidences, nothing short of a miracle, especially for Malek who survived to tell the story.
"Everyone in the plane that evening was not supposed to be there," Malek recalled, perhaps still in disbelief that he was able to recount the incident.
Malek was driven from his house in Cheras to attend the meeting, but was persuaded to join a round of golf, send his driver home, then join the flight home that night.
The then deputy police Internal Security and Public Order Department director, Senior Assistant Commissioner Abu Bakar Ali was there too as he was replacing his boss, the late Tan Sri Zaman Khan, who was away. He was rescued by Malek from the wreckage, but succumbed to severe burns a day later.
Assistant Superintendent Safar Jini was asked to replace a Deputy Superintendent Abdul Hadi, who had to attend another meeting.
"Safar was the one who always made arrangements for other people's flights, but had never flown until that day. He said to me, before the flight, 'Tuan, this is the first time (I am) taking a plane'," Malek recalled.
Malek can still recall every single detail leading to the tragedy, the slippers that he wore after Maghrib prayers before boarding the plane, the impact, the explosions, the smell of the burning aircraft and, of course, the cries for help, especially from his colleague seated beside him.
A framed collection of paper cuttings of the well-documented tragedy still hangs on the wall in his house, while a copy is kept in his mobile phone.
"When I boarded the plane, I was directed to sit in the last row, which was strange because senior officers usually sat behind the pilot. But I didn't make a fuss and took my seat.
"That was probably what saved my life," said Malek, who was near the exit door that flung open on impact, enabling him to crawl out to safety.
Recalling the crash that happened at 8.45pm, Malek said: "Fifteen to 20 minutes before reaching Subang Airport, I felt something was not right — the plane jerked.
"I had flown on this plane before but had never experienced this. The plane jerked twice, thrice. Then I became suspicious.
"Based on my experience, (I knew) something was wrong with the plane."
He said he resigned his fate to the Almighty at that point. Malek's uneasiness increased when he saw that as they approached Subang, the area was well lit.
"Usually, the runway would be dark (except for the runway lights), but I realised it was brightly lit. It (turned out to be) the highway!"
There was no communication from the cockpit although according to reports later, the pilot did make a Mayday call to the control tower before the plane crashed. The others remained quiet, but Malek couldn't recall anyone panicking.
"When we were near the Saujana golf course, I prayed and I remember the determination to survive. I thought I would prise the exit door open if anything happened.
"The engine had lost power and then it hit the tallest tree and I heard the crash. The plane flipped," said Malek, adding that in an upside down position, he could see the ground as the plane's exit door was flung open.
"I unfastened my seatbelt and crawled out. There was fire in the cockpit. They (the others) were strapped and trapped.
"I could hear, 'Please help, tolong, tolong' but there was nothing I could do. When I left the plane, I heard my boss shouting for me, 'Malek tolong, tolong'.
"I ran back to the plane to rescue him and placed him on the island in the middle of the road.
"He was on fire."
Coincidentally, Malek saw Zaman's driver, who had just left Subang Airport.
"I said to him, your boss is not here, but you are here. So I asked for his phone and started making phone calls."
Malek was able to carry out two of the passengers and the boy from the Proton Saga.
"Apparently, I was told, the boy who was in the back seat was waving to the approaching plane. I found his body and placed him on the plane door that had flung open. By then, there were explosions and fire was already raging.
"But then I remembered something I had left in the plane — the fire had not reached the back. I rushed back to get my wallet, where I kept a copy of a prayer — Bismillah 6. It was stupid, but I rushed back to get it."
Malek's brother took him to University Hospital (now Universiti Malaya Medical Centre), but no one suspected that he was a survivor of the horrendous crash. There was not a scratch on him.
Norhayati remembers that night distinctly as well.
"When he came home just before midnight, I made him change his clothes. There was just a bruise on the shoulder, but no injury.
"He then prayed and went to see the children who were sleeping and that was when he cried," said Norhayati, then a senior radiographer at the Cardiac Unit of Kuala Lumpur Hospital, who later moved to the National Heart Institute.
The incident didn't discourage Malek from flying again, for within two weeks, he was off to a meeting in Hat Yai.
Malek then recalled the history of the Swiss-made plane. He was actually instrumental in the order for the aircraft as instructed by the then deputy inspector-general of police.
Although the Air Unit had used the planes before, it stopped for a while, until Malek wrote a letter.
"I was thinking to myself about the performance of the plane. I was impressed that after a year, nothing bad had happened.
"But it did cross my mind at that time, what if something wrong happened and I was a passenger? And on May 17, 1989, it happened."
In yet another coincidence, New Straits Times reporter Mimi Syed Yusof and Malay Mail sports reporter Johnson Fernandez were nearby after sending off friends at the airport.
Mimi recalled seeing someone in the aircraft trying to disentangle himself.
"I was miles away from a phone — there were no mobile or smartphones then.
"The nearest phone booth was at the airport, but that would be a long walk back to my car. I then saw a policeman with the ATUR 450," Mimi recalled in the NST's 175th anniversary special.
Mimi, then a rookie reporter, was given the unenviable job of interviewing the family of the boy who died.
Today will forever be a sad reminder of those who perished in the crash.
For Malek, as thankful as he is that he survived, he will forever feel a tinge of regret that he could not save his friends and colleagues.
