SINGAPORE – Four decades have passed but Mr Jagjit Singh still has flashbacks and sees the bright lights of a helicopter shining straight at him.

He was eight years old on Jan 29, 1983, and in cable car 26 with six other members of his family when the derrick, or tower-like structure, of the Panama-registered oil drilling vessel Eniwetok struck the cableway.

His family had travelled to Sentosa to spend "happy time" as a family, to lift the Primary 3 pupil's spirits because he had been struggling to fit in at school.