Kota Kinabalu: Fifty years after the Double Six air disaster claimed the lives of five Sabah leaders as well as six others, their descendants are urging that the tragedy be written into school curricula before the memory fades from public life entirely.
The descendants were met during the 50th Anniversary of the Double Six Crash lunch reception hosted by the Fuad Stephens family, which brought together families and friends of the victims at a lunch reception.
Also present were Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Joniston Bangkuai and Sabah Publishing House Deputy General Manager Dexter Yeh, among others.
Besides Stephens, those who died in the Nomad plane crash as it was approaching the Kota Kinabalu Airport runway from Labuan near Sembulan around 3pm on 6.6.1976, were:
Datuk Peter Mojuntin, Datuk Chong Tain Voon, Datuk Salleh Sulong, Datuk Darius Binion, Datuk Wahid Peter Andu, Datuk Syed Hussein Wafe, Ishak Itan, Said Muhamad, Stephens’ son Johari who was in the cockpit and pilot Gandhi Nathan.
An official report on the findings was declassified by the Malaysian Government due to a court action by former Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Mohd Salleh, following pertinent questions raised in an investigative series by the Daily Express which revisited the tragedy after 45 years. It won the inaugural national award for Investigative Journalism for Daily Express, which was accompanied by a YouTube documentary called “Double Six: The Untold Stories.”
Following the Malaysian Government’s decision by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the Australian Government also declassified their findings which revealed that the tragedy was due to pilot error and overloading.
Christy Aniko Marcus, granddaughter of the late Datuk Darius Binion, said her grandmother, Datin Jikilin, had raised their children largely on her own following the disaster, relying on personal resilience despite being illiterate.
“She has to take care of herself and the children, and she is mostly street smarts,” she said reflecting on what her grandmother had endured brought a mix of grief and gratitude. I think it is a mixed bag of grief and also just grateful for whatever lessons that we can have,” she said.
Aniko added that the growing awareness among younger Sabahans of their own history carried a healing quality, but expressed regret that so much of it remained absent from school textbooks.
“For our Sabahan history, our history books in school, it is not written down and we have to learn it all on our own,” she said. “Even for me, I actually had to go through a Wiki page at first.”
Her elder sibling, Melody, said there is an urgent need to document their grandmother’s knowledge while she is still alive.
“There is a really important need to preserve the knowledge while she is still alive. We still get lots of insight from her in order to know what history has not written in books,” she said. Melody said the family drew continued inspiration from the legacy their grandfather had left behind.
“Despite him not being here, we try our best to always remember his sacrifice, to stay well-informed about the real history that happened,” she said.
Atalia Mae Albert Jaua, granddaughter of the late Datuk Peter Mojuntin, said she had not fully grasped the significance of the Double Six tragedy until her secondary school years and questioned why the history was not being taught in classrooms.
“I believe the reason why the loss is still felt today is because Sabah is actually still longing for leaders who are just like the ones that we lost.
“I feel like more Sabahans need to know about this history, not just through oral history, not just through social media, but actually integrated into our museums and school curriculums,” she said. Atalia also raised concern about younger Sabahans failing to recognise public memorials dedicated to the victims, citing reports that children in Donggongon did not know whose statue stood there.
“If nobody knows, in the future they would just simply tear it down. Even the memorial, if nobody remembers it, one day it will just stop. So I feel like before that happens, we need to protect it,” she said, referring to her grandfather’s statue in the heart of Donggongon Town.
Medina Asgari Stephens, granddaughter of the late Tun Fuad Stephens, said the sense of loss from the disaster had been felt not only within her family but across communities throughout Sabah.
“You feel this missing piece within our families and whenever we would go out and meet other people within Sabah, you also feel the loss, not only from their families but within the communities at the time,” she said.
Medina said she believed most Sabahans remain hopeful, and that the strength, passion and belief in a greater Sabah carried by those who perished lived on in the people today.
Asked whether she hoped for more truth to be shared about the tragedy, she said what she wanted more was for the ideals of what Sabah could become to be kept alive.
Her brother, Fuad Asgari Stephens, said he had come to know his grandfather solely through books and historical accounts, but urged Sabahans to look beyond grief and focus on the qualities that made Fuad a memorable leader.
“I do not think he is a once-in-a-lifetime guy. I think all Sabahans can embody some part of that.
“It is more about remembering what are the qualities that made him such a memorable leader and what brought people together,” he said, citing his grandfather’s resilience, generosity and a capacity for forgiveness as values he himself tried to carry forward.
“I also try and embody some of those values about being kind to people, not holding judgments against people, being generous with your time and being understanding of others,” he said.
Leila, granddaughter of the late Datuk Salleh Sulong, said her mother had been only around five years old at the time of the crash and remembered little of it, but had occasionally shared stories about Salleh’s character as a strong man who believed deeply in uplifting the people of Sabah.
Leila said attending the commemorative event had itself been a learning experience.
“Just coming here today, I felt that I have learned so much already just being with the other families of the ministers that passed away,” she said.
She added that what Sabahans were taught in school about the tragedy and the State’s founding fathers was far from sufficient.
“I think that is something that should really be brought forward and brought to schools more,” she said.
Suraya, also a granddaughter of Datuk Salleh Sulong, said her mother Kartina Sulong had been eight years old and the oldest daughter in the family when the crash happened, and had carried vivid and traumatic memories of having to protect her younger siblings in the aftermath.
Suraya said awareness of the tragedy among her peers had only begun gaining traction following the release of the recent report, but said that level of public knowledge was still not where it should be.
“As a Sabahan who has worked in Kuala Lumpur for many years, it is even worse. They have no idea about it, if anything,” she said.
She called for greater efforts to champion the history in the years ahead, describing the tragedy as a crucial part of Sabah’s story that had fundamentally altered the State’s trajectory.
“Sabah is just craving for change and is on the cusp of change, and it just requires the leadership to guide it through,” she said.
Fifty years have passed since the tragedy claimed the lives of Sabah’s leaders, yet the memories endure through a generation that was not yet born when it happened.
Those interviewed were in their 20s and early 30s, raised on stories passed down by their parents and united in the belief that what they carry through family memory alone is not enough.
