…bad weather delays return of pilot’s body

THE Search and Rescue team deployed to Region Eight (Potaro–Siparuni ) following the fatal plane crash on Sunday has not been able to extract the body of the pilot, Imran Khan, due to poor weather conditions and loss of sunlight, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) said on Monday night. And, the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said it will now intensify monitoring of domestic aircraft, as it probes the second fatal accident in less than a month.
In a terse statement, the GDF said that after feverish attempts, the rescue pilots were unable to have a visual of the extraction point. However, the GDF said it is anticipated that the mission will be completed today, depending on the harsh mountainous and weather conditions. Khan, an Air Services Limited (ASL) pilot, died when the Cessna 206 aircraft he was flying crashed in the interior on Sunday.

Khan had been on shuttle duty and was returning from Chai Chai to Mahdia when contact was lost with his carrier. From an aerial view, the single-engine aircraft seemed to have flipped sideways on landing, since there was a clear view of its fuselage. The Guyana Chronicle was told that both of the wings of the aircraft are broken off. National Air Transport Association President, Annette Arjoon-Martins, who spoke on behalf of ASL, told this publication that after contact was lost with the aircraft, five planes were immediately dispatched to the identified location. She said a Trans Guyana Airways aircraft joined the search, as well as two ASL helicopters. Arjoon-Martins said ASL has been in communication with the pilot’s brother, who is the only other family member residing in Guyana.
The relative is expected to travel to the city from Essequibo, today.  The dead pilot is the second son and child for his parents, Buddy and Jean Khan, who now reside in the United States with their only daughter. They are originally from Coffee Grove on the Essequibo Coast, just over two miles from the town of Anna Regina. Khan been working with the company for almost seven years. Arjoon -Martins expressed gratitude to other aviation operators, the Special Forces and the support of the GCAA for their “tremendous” effort in speedily locating the dead pilot.

PROBE LAUNCHED

Meanwhile, in a statement the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said it has launched an investigation into the accident. The body said the pilot, Captain Imran Khan, who was the lone occupant of the aircraft, was on his second shuttle mission for the day at the time of the accident. The GCAA said preliminary report indicated that the plane was scheduled to land at Mahdia at approximately 08:47hrs but failed to do so. A distress signal was received at approximately 09:08hrs which initiated a search operation by all domestic operators within the vicinity of the last known location of the aircraft.
The crash site was positively identified at 12:56hrs and a team from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was deployed to the area to recover the pilot. According to the aviation body, due to the conditions of the terrain, the rescue team had to trek for approximately three hours cutting through thick vegetation to reach the crash site from the landing zone. The rescue team recovered the body of Captain Khan late Sunday afternoon.

ALL AREAS
The GCAA said the investigation by the Accident and Incident Investigation Group (AIG) will examine all possible areas that could have contributed to the occurrence of this latest accident, including weather condition, pilot’s flight and duty hours, and the type of operations the pilot was conducting. Director General of the GCAA, Lt. Col. (ret’d) Egbert Fields, is quoted in the release as saying that surveillance and inspection of air operators, aircraft and other aspects of aviation operations will continue with more frequency. A meeting will also be held with all domestic operators on Wednesday to discuss safety issues and other matters in light of this latest accident.
“The GCAA has commenced the State Safety Programme (SSP) as mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and is presently at the implementation stage. The elements of the SSP was introduced to service providers at a workshop held in July 2017 as a precursor for the Safety Management System (SMS) which all operators are expected to implement.” The GCAA said it continues to be proactive, and is diligently working with airline operators to ensure that their SMS programmes develop and function effectively. “The successful implementation of SSP and SMS will help to identify the hazards within the aviation sector and manage risks to the safety of passengers, operators and the aircraft. The GCAA remains committed towards creating a safe, secure and modern civil aviation sector, and to reduce the current number of aircraft accidents,” the statement concluded.
On Sunday evening Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said government had mandated the GCAA to ramp up checks and inspections of aircrafts and facilities even as he expressed condolences to the relatives and friends of Captain Imran Khan. “We have asked the Director of Civil Aviation for there to be more frequent levels of inspection of these aircrafts, of the pilots and the facilities they use to ensure that there is a higher level of safety in these operations. We, as a small country, cannot continue to lose young men in the prime of their lives to accidents. We are calling on the Director to increase [the] level of investigation and oversight over all of the operators to ensure that the serviceability of these aircrafts are checked, that the time and hours of the pilots, which they fly must also be checked and this must not just be a one off check but a regular check and also time and again, what we call ramp checks [random checks],” the Minister of State said.
Minister Harmon said that safety is a major concern for the administration and it is for this reason that the Government has been expending large amounts of money in the development of airstrips, particularly those located in the hinterland. “We have expended quite a sum of money on the conditions of our hinterland airstrips. In the 2016 and 2017 Budgets, huge sums of monies were allocated for the development of these airstrips out of these concerns not only for the pilots themselves but for the passengers that they carry. We want to see a safe aviation industry so that the people who have to use these aircrafts, that there must be a very safe corridor,” he noted.

Sunday’s plane crash is the third to occur in less than two months, two of which resulted in fatalities.
Roraima Airways pilot, Colin Martin, perished on July 25 when his Britten-Norman Islander aircraft crashed on landing at Eteringbang, in Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni). Two weeks later, the Britten Norman Islander aircraft with Captain Dominic Waddel went down in the Eteringbang area, but he escaped with minor injuries. In December 2014, ASL’s Britten Norman Islander, registered as 8R-GHE disappeared while on a routine shuttle operation from Mahdia to Karisparu, Region Eight. The pilot, Captain Nicholas Persaud, 27, cargo handler David Bisnauth, 51, and the aircraft have not been found