A RORAIMA Airways Ltd. aircraft (Britten-Norman Trislander), bearing Registration No. 8R GRE crash-landed on Saturday near the Haags Bosch Sanitary Landfill Site, aback Eccles, on the East Bank Demerara (EBD), en route to the Eugene Correia International Airport at Ogle.

The aircraft had departed Imbaimadai, in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), at approximately 10:20hrs, and was scheduled to arrive at the Ogle Airport, but on its way there reportedly experienced mechanical difficulties, forcing the pilot to effect an emergency landing.

Upon crash-landing at Eccles, a search-and- rescue operation was immediately activated by the Timehri Control Tower, and operatives from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) were mobilised and dispatched to the scene of the incident.

According to reports, there were five persons aboard the aircraft; three passengers, inclusive of a child, and two crew members.
All five persons managed to survive the accident, though one experienced minor injuries. They were all subsequently taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for medical evaluation.

Minister of Public Works, Bishop Juan Edghill, told the Sunday Chronicle that officers from the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) were dispatched to the site to ascertain what might have caused the plane to crash.

He noted that while it is too early to do so, the crew members were taken to the hospital for drug testing to ensure that they were not under the influence of any substances that might have caused them to lose control of the aircraft.

“Investigations are ongoing; it’s still too early. The standard things have been done; the pilots have done their drug tests at the hospital to ensure that they are okay and not in any way impaired. My GCAA people are on the ground,” Minister Edghill said.

The Public Works Minister noted that the terrain in which the aircraft crashed is kind of tricky to negotiate.
“The plane crash-landed in an area that is swampy; you have above-knee-high water, so getting in and out, for various people, is not as easy as ABC. They have to get their cargo weighed, and all the rest of it,” Minister Edghill said.

He said that this has made accessing the aircraft for investigative purposes somewhat difficult, but the GCAA team has been working strategically to conduct their preliminary probe.