Millions lost in Nishantha Wickremasingha trying to drop passengers in flight ... to France, with intention of sending friends!

Millions lost in Nishantha Wickremasingha trying to drop passengers in flight ... to France, with intention of sending friends! 

It is a well-known story that Nishantha Wickremasingha, the brother-in-law of former president when he was occupying the chairman seat of Sri Lankan Aviation Services had deviated a flight from Singapore at his own whims and fancies.

What was revealed from the  committee for corruption was yet another nonsensical order. As a result of an order issued in connection with a flight scheduled to set off for France, management of Sri

Lankan Aviation was thus changed and consequently Sri Lankan Airlines had to sustain a loss of over hundred million in the process. The reason in fact was the abnormal incident of having found a necessity of dropping a group pf passengers halfway and instead making a special group of people enter the flight instead. The commission has stated that an incident of this nature has never been done by a chairman of any airline in the world.

According to revelations of the special Presidential committee appointed to delve into corruption of Sri Lankan and Minhin Lanka companies yesterday (15) 128 passengers missed their destination as a result and apart from the loss faced by Sri Lankan Airlines, they faced an immense black mark to their goodwill too in the process.

This then is the evidence given managers of Sri Lankan Airline, Messrs. Dhammika Senanayaka and Handapangoda in the presence of the commission under directions of additional solicitor general Mr. Niel Unambuwa: "I functioned as the manager for flight directions from the morning of 25th January 2014 till morning of 26th at Katunayaka Airport. On that day two of our planes were subjected to technical problems. Because of it we decided to send the flight from Colombo to the capital of France at the proper time and to delay the flight from Colombo to France. We were able to manage the situation without causing any loss to the company.

When circumstances were such, on the morning of 26th the chairman of Sri Lankan Airways, Mr. Nishantha Wickramasingha spoke to me over the telephone and informed me to send the flight from Colombo to France without delay. What he said was that a special set of passengers are to be sent on that flight".

Commission: Did you question chairman Mr. Nishantha Wickramasingha as to who that special group was?

Reply: No. If I questioned so ... he might have lost his temper.

Commission: Did you inform anybody about this flight delay through e-mail as such?

Reply: Yes. I notified higher authorities as well as the flight staff about it.

Commission: Was that e-mail message sent to chairman of the airline Mr. Nishantha Wickramasingha too?

Reply: Yes. It was under such a situation that Mr. Nishantha Wickramasingha spoke to me over the phone and asked me to send the flight from Colombo to France without delay.

Since a special team of passengers were to leave on that flight, we sent the flight at the correct time under orders of the chairman. Therefore, as a consequence of crowds who were to arrive for that flight as well as those who were to leave from had to be directed to their destination for which purpose tickets had to be purchased from other companies at a large expense. Due to this reason Sri Lankan Airways encountered a severe loss of 90,260 American dollars.

Mr. Anil Gooneratna (retired supreme court judge) functions as the chairman of the commission while Messrs. Gamini Amarasekera (Appeal courts judge), Piyasena Ranasingha (retired High Court judge) and Anthony Harold (retired deputy attorney general) and Kapugama Geeganage (director-general of Audit and Standards Surveyor Institute).

Note: Buddhimal Ruberu