AUCKLAND: The body of actor and fallen soldier Aloysius Pang is on its way back to Singapore after it left Auckland Airport on Friday (Jan 25).
Pang’s body left the mortuary at Waikato Hospital on Thursday evening after authorities agreed not to proceed with a post-mortem at the family’s request, a mortuary staff member who declined to be named said.
Corporal First Class (National Service) Pang, 28, died in the early hours of Thursday (New Zealand time) after sustaining serious injuries during a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) training exercise in New Zealand.
READ: Aloysius Pang was crushed between howitzer gun barrel and cabin
Separately, New Zealand police told Channel NewsAsia a preliminary investigation into the incident was undertaken after it was notified of Pang’s death.
“The death is not being treated as suspicious and police offer their sympathies to the friends and family of Aloysius Pang Wei Chong,” Detective Inspector Brent Matuku said.
READ: Aloysius Pang: 4th SAF training fatality in 18 months
At a press conference on Thursday, SAF senior commanders said Pang was crushed between the gun barrel of a howitzer and its cabin after he was “unable to get out of the way” as the barrel was lowered.
(Graphic: MINDEF)
On Thursday evening, Pang’s body was transported to local funeral parlour Sincere Funeral Services, eight minutes away from the hospital.
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A staff member at the parlour told Channel NewsAsia that Pang’s body had left for Auckland Airport at 7.30am on Friday (2.30am, Singapore time).
At Auckland Airport’s corporate terminal, a group of men – one of them wearing a Singapore Army uniform – asked if this reporter was there for the “funeral”.
At about 11.15am, a group of men and women wearing New Zealand military uniform exited the corporate terminal airside and boarded a van.
The corporate terminal at Auckland Airport. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
The hearse used to transport Aloysius Pang’s body. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
Shortly after, a Sincere Funeral Services hearse left the terminal, followed by an empty passenger van.
Finally at about noon, a Republic of Singapore Air Force KC-135 taxied to the runway and took off heading east.
The KC-135 aircraft carrying Aloysius Pang. (Photo: Aqil Haziq Mahmud)
Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen had said in a Facebook post that a KC-135 had been sent to New Zealand to repatriate Pang’s body.
Pang’s manager Dasmond Koh told reporters there could be plans for a memorial service so “all of his fans and loved ones can say goodbye”.
