A M’sian lady’s search for her grandpa’s legacy led her to discover… a missing plane?

Growing up, most of us might’ve heard our relatives telling us stories about our heritage. And though they might have been nice to listen to at bedtime, a majority of us just never really questioned whether these stories were particularly true or not.

However, after years of listening to her relatives’ tales about her grandfather’s extravagant life, Cindy Ong, who some of you might realize as our former national swimmer, decided to do some digging… And with the power of the internet and her family’s stories on her side, she was actually able to find some old news clippings and photographs of her grandfather!

But then she saw something in the background of one of the pictures…

So, she reached out to us here at CILISOS to find out more about the plane, as well as her grandfather’s legacy because- well, how many of us can actually say our family heirloom was a whole airplane right?? Anyways, as it turns out…

Cindy’s grandfather was one of the first M’sians to have his OWN PLANE.

Way back when a whole meal might cost you as little as 10 – 20 sen each, Cindy’s grandfather, named Ong Ee Lim was actually the very first Chinese Malaysian to own a private airplane. For those of you who might be into airplanes, he was the proud owner of a DH.80A Puss Moth plane, which was purposely designed for private flying in the UK.

The private airplane was used on business trips, for pleasure, and to take aerial photographs; which included filming a portion of the route for the London-Melbourne air-race back in 1934. The air-race involved over 20 different airplanes from all over the world who came together to compete for the prize money of £15,000. The race had 5 compulsory stops across the globe; one of which was in Singapore, where Ong Ee Lim had used his airplane for filming! 

And since this was an international event that was happening in the very early days of air-travel, Cindy’s grandfather’s participation in the event was such a big deal that it was covered in the newspapers. But while having a plane alone was impressive enough, the story behind how he got the plane in the first place is even more impressive…

He got his plane through a barter trade… with cars as currency.

Of course, buying an airplane isn’t as simple as buying groceries at a supermarket; you can’t just walk into a store that sells airplanes and make a purchase. So, how exactly did this Malaysian businessman manage to get his hands on one of his own?

The answer’s pretty simple: He dealt in cars, and a lot of his business connections were with the British. According to Cindy, her grandfather obtained his wealth from being an Opel dealer; not the precious stone, but Opel Cars, which you don’t really see around anymore. This then led to the trade deal that he made with the Brits: One Puss Moth airplane in exchange for a few cars. 

But that’s not all. According to Cindy, his business connections to the British might have also saved his life. 

“Grandpa fled to India in 1940; just a year before the Japanese occupied Malaya. Presumably with the help of the British. My father and his brother were born in India in 1942, and stayed there for 6 years before they moved back to Malaysia.” – Cindy Ong, to CILISOS.

And since Cindy’s father was only born shortly after her grandfather fled to India, I guess we have to thank the Brits for Cindy’s existence (and for all the international championships she’s brought us too!).

However, the plane is currently MISSING.

We scoured the records and found that the deal was most likely made in August 1934. However, as seen in the last column of the registry, the current status of the airplane is still left empty. This means that while the plane was last located in the Kuala Lumpur Flying Club (which used to be in the Sungai Besi Air Force Base), its current status and condition are unknown. 

“Grandpa died in 1984, but it may have “disappeared” before his passing. We will only know for sure if there is a log of the flights. The only thing that has kept me hopeful is the status of the plane. Other planes from around that era have statuses on them – either crashed, missing, etc. But the Puss Moth has none.” – Cindy Ong

Cindy and CILISOS are actively searching for the plane’s current whereabouts at the moment, but so far our search hasn’t really taken off because frankly, we’re no detectives. But if someone out there does happen to know a thing or two about looking for missing objects (private airplanes in particular), we’d appreciate the help!

We’ll update this article if we get more information on it, but until then… we guess we’ll just have to wing it.