The Royal Malaysian Air Force paired the F/A-18 and Su-30MKM to perform a tactical display to the crowd at this year’s Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition. However, the Su-30MKM suffered from mechanical issues on the last trade day display and in the afternoon session of the public day display.
The team adopted Ace as their callsign. Ace 3, flown by Capt. Alien and Maj. Jamil, was in trouble right after the aircraft was airborne from Langkawi airport on Mar. 28. The jet’s right main landing gear failed to retract after climbing left on take off. The crew abandoned plans to join the rest of the team for the tactical display and diverted to the west of the airfield to dump fuel and recover back at Langkawi. Later in the evening, we asked Capt. Aliem how he handled the emergency situation and he replied that as a fighter pilot he was trained to handle all kinds of situations. The aircraft was fortunately able to deploy all its landing gear and landed without further incident. The plan for any emergency was to land back in Langkawi as the support crew are all on the island for the air show.
The next day, Ace 1 also faced an emergency situation after getting airborne for the first afternoon display session for LIMA.
With Lt. Col. Faizal at the controls and Maj. Nik sitting behind him. One of the aircraft’s electro mechanical system failed and the crew calmly dealt with the problem and landed safely.