not blocked off by barriers because part of the strip was used by landing planes to taxi back to the airport terminal. The pilot confirmed twice with the control tower that he was on the correct runway; controllers did not know the plane had actually gone on to the wrong runway because the airport lacked ground radar and the plane was out of sight of the tower at the time of its takeoff attempt. Actions of flight crew and flight attendants A survivor of the crash, John Wiggans, stated in a USA Today article that the staff were unable to help the passengers escape from the aircraft because they were frozen by fear or lack of competence in emergency procedures; Wiggans was seated in the upper deck business class area. The Straits Times carried reports of flight attendants saving lives of passengers. One story from the newspaper stated that a flight attendant initially escaped the crash, but she ran back into the aircraft to attempt to save passengers, and died. The Australian reported that some flight attendants helped passengers, while some flight attendants fled the aircraft before all passengers were accounted for. The New Paper stated that the pilots attempted to help the passengers. The Taiwanese report stated that the relief pilot (Crew Member 3, or CM-3) said in an interview that he was the first to leave the cockpit and the last to leave the aircraft.(pp. 108/508) A passenger sitting in seat 17A stated that the right upper deck door flight attendant directed him to the main deck via the stairs; the flight attendant later died.(pp. 108/508) Upper deck passengers and flight attendants stated that the Crew-In-Charge flight attendant (CIC) went upstairs after the first impact; the Crew-In-Charge flight attendant later died.(pp. 109/508) The 3R and 3L flight attendants also died; they were seated in the middle of the aircraft.(pp. 110/508) Aftermath The accident aircraft 9V-SPK was painted in special livery by Singapore Airlines, a scheme called "Tropical", at the time of the accident. The livery was unveiled in September 1998 in conjunction with the launch of Singapore Airlines' latest cabin product offerings across all of the airline's travel classes at the time. After the accident, 9V-SPL, the sister aircraft painted with the same livery, was removed from service and repainted with standard Singapore Airlines livery. It would be 15 years before the airline would introduce another special livery,