Old photos from College

Appreciation Errol Cramer - islank.lk

The death occurred recently of Errol Michael Gerald Cramer. An Old Boy of St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya, he joined the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF), in the early 1960s and was appointed a Sergeant Pilot. Other members of his batch were Siddique Sally, Mike Siebel, and Cecil Marambe. In fact, they were the first batch of airmen who were directly promoted as Sergeants in the RCyAF, resulting in more than a few raised eyebrows in the Sergeants’ Mess. My first encounter with Errol Cramer was in 1970 while I was an ‘airport bum ‘at Ratmalana, watching aircraft come and go. One day a RCyAF de Havilland Dove landed and a smart-looking pilot emerged to fix the aircraft’s tail support trestle. He was pointed out to me by fellow-‘bum’, Vajirapanni, as the "guy who will be joining Air Ceylon soon". We watched in awe because joining Air Ceylon, as a pilot, in those days was only a distant dream for us.

In Errol Cramer’s case, his reputation preceded him. For instance, we had heard that one day he had been flying a Hunting Jet Provost in formation with similar aircraft, and his wingman had lost visual contact with him because his wing got in the way. Without breaking off and reformatting, the wingman decided to lower the wing again to re-establish visual contact. Errol was so close to him that the wingman’s aircraft touched the forward part (horn) of Cramer’s elevator which resulted in his Jet Provost shooting upwards. The resulting ‘G’ forces caused Errol to black out momentarily, and when he came to the airplane was in a vertical climb! One can only imagine what would have happened if the wing had touched the rear part of the elevator, causing damage and a more serious potentially fatal vertical dive with loss of control.

After an illustrious career in the RCyAF, in 1971 Errol Cramer joined Air Ceylon, the national carrier, as a First Officer (co-pilot). His batchmates in that intake were S. Yogenthiran and U. Ramanayake. After a short stint as First Officer, he earned his command on the Douglas DC-3 Dakota and, later, Hawker Siddeley (Avro) 748. He also flew as a First Officer on Air Ceylon’s sole HS 121 Trident jetliner. While in Air Ceylon, Cramer served as Secretary of the Air Ceylon Pilots’ Guild for many years.

During this period, early on most mornings he would fly the Survey Department’s Beechcraft E18 aircraft on photo survey flights. They would get airborne at first light and fly to the designated area. Onboard as navigator would be the late Roy de Niese, plus a photo specialist and, invariably, a Flying School trainee clocking up Instrument flying time for his Commercial Pilots’ Licence. I was one of those trainees who benefited from practising instrument flying under Errol’s supervision. This aerial work helped the Ceylon Government to develop the Mahaveli Scheme into what it is today. In 1979 Errol was seconded to the newly formed Air Lanka as a First Officer. There he flew the Boeing 707 and Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, initially as a First Officer and later as Captain.

Errol was always good-natured and kind, especially to junior pilots. I remember how one day in 1977, before the formation of Air Lanka, I was his First Officer on an Avro 748 flight to Ratmalana from China Bay (Trincomalee). As we were approaching the runway, it was suddenly obscured by heavy rain (the weather forecast had said nothing about this) so we had to divert to Katunayake. It was raining heavily there too. By now we were running out of fuel and needed to land as soon as possible. In those days they didn’t have Ground Radar that could read our height. The Radar Controller could only give us headings to line up with the runway.

We were approaching from the sea. In the HS 748, we had a three-pointer altimeter which had a reputation of giving wrong interpretation. Sure enough, when we crossed Kapungoda radio beacon we noticed that we were only 300ft above ground instead of 1,300ft. Errol did not panic (we were somewhere over the Negombo Lagoon); as his experience kicked in, he maintained the 300ft altitude for a few seconds more until we sighted the runway dimly in the rain – with the windscreen wipers fighting a losing battle – and landed.

Never autocratic, Errol’s quiet confidence was an inspiration to all. Crew Resource Management (CRM) came naturally to him. I remember another time while we were ‘holding’ in and out of cloud in moonlight, waiting for bad weather below to clear so that we could land at China Bay. Errol handed over the controls to me, his junior First Officer, as he was "getting disorientated’’. Today, ‘disorientation’ is blamed for many an incident and accident in the world of international aviation. But Errol was a professional pilot who knew his limits and led by example.

As luck would have it, when Air Lanka flew to Melbourne and Sydney in the early Nineties with the TriStar, I was Captain and Errol was my co-pilot. None of us had ever been to that part of the world. I was really glad that I was flying with him as his mature outlook was definitely an asset to a new boy like me.

One of Errol Cramer’s more memorable flights with Air Lanka occurred on May 24, 1992. As described by Roger Thiedeman in ‘Airways’ magazine, November 1999, a chartered Air Lanka TriStar 500 departed Colombo for Nagoya, Japan with 150 Japanese men and women, all members of the secretive and murderous ‘Aum Shinri Kyo’ cult. Also onboard was charismatic cult leader Shoko Asahara. At the controls of the TriStar were Captain David Hawkes, an Englishman, and Errol Cramer as his co-pilot. An hour after takeoff the cult members began objecting strongly to the presence in the passenger cabin of two off-duty Air Lanka crewmembers. Attired in casual clothing, these two were there in their capacity as Ground Turnaround Engineer and Load Sheet Officer to manage the aircraft on its return to Sri Lanka from Japan, without passengers, after the charter flight. The cult members demanded that the two ‘deadheading’ employees vacate their economy class seats and sit in the galley (meal preparation and serving area) instead.

When all attempts at reason by the purser failed, Captain Hawkes emerged from the cockpit to try to resolve the situation. But the cult members immediately surrounded him and pinned him against the bulkhead (wall) of the passenger cabin, preventing him from returning to the flightdeck, while subjecting him to noisy abuse and threats. Meanwhile, at the controls of the TriStar, Errol Cramer became concerned that Hawkes had not returned from the cabin. Sensing that something was amiss, he gently banked the airplane in what he hoped was an unobtrusive turn back toward Colombo. To cut a long story short, thanks to Errol’s decisive and discreet action, the aircraft landed safely at Katunayake and, after intervention by local authorities who admonished the cult members and demanded that they behave themselves, the flight to Nagoya resumed, but with a change of crew.

Errol was a man of many interests, including cars and motorcycles, and as a great story-teller he would hold your attention for hours, especially on long flights. Above all, Errol had the capacity to laugh at himself, which made him very popular with everyone who had the privilege of knowing and working with him.

After retiring from flying at the age of 62, Errol Cramer was employed as an Inspector in the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka, and then as Manager Flight Operations for Mihin Lanka.

May he Rest in Peace.
Flying West
I hope there’s a place, way up in the sky
Where pilots can go when they have to die.
A place where a guy could buy a cold beer
For a friend and a comrade whose memory is dear.
A place where no doctor or lawyer could tread,
Nor a management-type would e’er be caught dead!
Just a quaint little place, kind of dark, full of smoke,
Where they like to sing loud, and love a good joke.
The kind of a place that a lady could go
And feel safe and secure by the men she would know.
There must be a place where old pilots go,
When their wings become heavy, when their airspeed gets low,
Where the whiskey is old, and the women are young,
And songs about flying and dying are sung.
Where you’d see all the fellows who’d ‘flown west’ before,
And they’d call out your name, as you came through the door,
Who would buy you a drink, if your thirst should be bad,
And relate to the others, "He was quite a good lad!"
And there, through the mist, you’d spot an old guy
You had not seen in years, though he’d taught you to fly.
He’d nod his old head, and grin ear to ear
And say, "Welcome, my son, I’m proud that you’re here!
For this is the place where true flyers come
When the battles are over, and the wars have been won.
They’ve come here at last, to be safe and alone,
From the government clerk, and the management clone;
Politicians and lawyers, the Feds, and the noise,
Where all hours are happy, and these good ol’ boys
Can relax with a cool one, and a well deserved rest!
This is Heaven, my Son. You’ve passed your last test!"

— Captain Michael J. Larkin, TWA (Ret.), ‘Air Line Pilot’ magazine, February 1995.

"To fly west, my friend is a flight we must all take for a final check"

Capt. G A Fernando