RIP: 1WO Tan Poh Eng - 20 May 2009
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Originally posted by Lamhinchew:
Hi all, I am the brother-in-law of Yoko. Appreciate the interest and the good words. My sis and nieces are now in South Africa with him. I had started an open Facebook group 'Friends of Yoko Tan Poh Eng' for people who know him to pay tribute to this imperfect but unique man. If you want to drop a few lines, share your personal experiences with him or even share pictures etc., you are most welcome to do so in the Facebook account. Would appreciate the language used please out of respect for the man. Thanks.
My condolence to his family and you took those words out of my mouth 'Imperfect but unique man' which he truly was. R.I.P Yoko. -
TO THOSE WHO CANNOT AGREE AND CANNOT RESPECT OR EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT A PJI OR IN FACT WHAT A COMMANDO DO, I TRUELY SUGGEST THAT YOU SHUT UP.
A 50 YR OLD DOESN'T MEAN HE CAN'T
HE DIE WITH HONOUR HE DIE FOR GLORY
HE WILL BE REMEMBER BY ALL COMMANDO
ALAS,ONE FOR THE BIG PJI IN THE SKY
THANK YOU
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A reminder to keep the thread clean of vulgarities and any politicking. Thank you. :)
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Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men who jump and die
Men who mean just what they say
The brave men of the Red Beret
CHORUS:
Silver wings upon their chest
These are men, Singapore's best
One hundred men will test today
But only three win the Red Beret
Trained to live off nature's land
Trained in combat, hand-to-hand
Men who fight by night and day
Courage peak from the Red Berets
CHORUS
Back at home a young wife waits
Her Red Beret has met his fate
He has died for those oppressed
Leaving her his last request
Put silver wings on my son's chest
Make him one of Singapore's best
He'll be a man they'll test one day
Have him win the Red Beret -
RIP.
dying after being shot in combat is glorious.
dying during a fitness run is not glorious, but at least you die intact.
dying due to chute failure, on a 3.8km jump is gory, but not glorious.
I wonder what he has in his mind as he lived his last moments.
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Originally posted by Gedanken:
May I strongly suggest you revise your post. This man was respected as a professional soldier by generations of professional soldiers, and PTW does not produce instructors who, as you say, haolian.
I want to ask the existence of professional soldiers in our force.Saying R.I.P would make a hypocrite of me, I'd rather be callous.
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Originally posted by deathmaster:
RIP.
dying after being shot in combat is glorious.
dying during a fitness run is not glorious, but at least you die intact.
dying due to chute failure, on a 3.8km jump is gory, but not glorious.
I wonder what he has in his mind as he lived his last moments.
Death is death, nothing glorious or inglorious about it. The difference is made in life.
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Ok, this may sound far fetched. But being South Africa........isn't a large part of South Africa on a raised plateau of at least 5000 ft above sea level? Are freefallers using altimeter settings based on QNH or QFE?
You know, when your usual playground is merely 30ft above sea level, a sudden change in elevation can confuse the most experienced professionals. We cal it a slip.
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One for the big PJI in the sky.
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Originally posted by crosshairs:
Ok, this may sound far fetched. But being South Africa........isn't a large part of South Africa on a raised plateau of at least 5000 ft above sea level? Are freefallers using altimeter settings based on QNH or QFE?
You know, when your usual playground is merely 30ft above sea level, a sudden change in elevation can confuse the most experienced professionals. We cal it a slip.
Relevance being?
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He opened late when he forgot he was going to be reaching the ground earlier this time?
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Why not read the news report and see if it matches this theory?
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Official story is not out yet. The above was a speculation. The army usually releases an official statement only after the investigations are completed.
How many times has a jumper counted to 3, shouted "check" and really registered the real situation of his chute's opening via visual evaluation, and how may times has a jumper acknowledged his canopy is screwed (when it is) and did the drill without hesitation?
There is always a hesitation. It's a moment of denial, being unable to accept his situation. The drill does not take care of that adequately, what really helped was when your PJI screwed you in PTW when you did not react fast enough.
Complacency can kill. That's what I was trying to say. I want to reiterate, this is speculation.
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And do you really think this is the place for theorising and speculation, especially seeing as how there are already a number of people here who personally know the deceased and may not appreciate a biology-lab style dissection of the incident?
Just take a step back and be aware of your surroundings.
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Originally posted by Detached:
I want to ask the existence of professional soldiers in our force.Saying R.I.P would make a hypocrite of me, I'd rather be callous.
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Originally posted by Gedanken:
And do you really think this is the place for theorising and speculation, especially seeing as how there are already a number of people here who personally know the deceased and may not appreciate a biology-lab style dissection of the incident?
Just take a step back and be aware of your surroundings.
Yes I am aware of my surroundings. And I never assumed that I am absolutely right on this one, and it was never my intention to be disrespectful to a deceased PJI. If you still want to pursue this feel free to private message me. If anyone here who is genuinely hurt emotionally by what I had to say here, please feel free to write to me. If my observations do eventually contribute to finding out what actually led to the accident, I am happy that further such incidents may be averted. If it is not of any help at all, you may call me names if you want to.
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Country 
South AfricaProvince Free State Officially founded 1846 Elevation 1,395 m (4,577 ft) Specifically this was what I was refering to. There are 2 ways to "calibrate" an altimeter (not sure of a freefaller uses the same method). One uses local area air pressure taken at sea level. When using this method, the user has to keep in mind the actual elevation of the ground. Which in this case is about 4500+ feet. This meant that the jumpers had only less than 8000 ft to reach the ground. . The other method is to use air pressure taken on the "hard deck", which is the ground. WIth this, the altimeter shows the user his exact height off the ground, when on the ground his altimeter should read 0. According to preliminary reports from the news, the team broke off at 3500ft, making no reference to whether they used the sea level or the ground elevation as the datum. If both 12,500ft and 3500ft used in the report was based on ground elevation, then the jumpers would have been exposed to an altitude of 17,000ft. This is the height at which a normal person without the aid of a breathing aparatus like 100% oxygen gets exposed to hypoxia. What is not possible is that the report uses the datum as sea level for both the altitudes reported, as this would inevitably meant that the team broke off 1000ft below the ground.
Regardless which method is being used, it is absolutely essential that the correct pressure setting be input into the altimeter. Errors can be big or small, and can be attributed to erroneous input( due to a large number of human errors possible) and changes to the air pressure with time, with the latter being negligible most of the time. With sky diving sports, ground elevation becomes more important as it gets higher, as factors such as low air density, higher vertical velocity and unusual readouts complicating an otherwise simple jump.
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Take your issues through the PM. Thanks.
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With regard to Crosshairs' speculation, I can surely say that any experienced PJI (Yoko had served 37 years as a red beret) who had jumped all over the world, will never make a mistake with their altimeter settings. Please do not 'ridicule' the professionalism and expertise of our PJIs with this simplistic speculation. However, I appreciate your educating us on the altimeter etc. Thanks for taking an interest on this matter.