The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has launched an investigation into reports by passengers of swaying and a dive by a Travel Span plane during a recent incoming flight.
Contacted for a comment yesterday GCAA Acting Director General Paula Mc Adam said the investigation was based on reports from passengers who said the aircraft was in an “unusual disposition” or altitude during the flight, which was on its way to Georgetown from New York on December 17.
The passengers had voiced their concerns through a section of the media and this raised eyebrows and spurred the investigation. But Mc Adam said so far, although the GCAA has spoken to several passengers it has not yet been able to confirm exactly what happened. “Our investigations revealed that indeed something did happen since some passengers have said that the aircraft was swaying and some said too that it made a sudden dive,” she said.
However the GCAA is still unable to ascertain what exactly caused the occurrence and has since contacted the airline’s operations department, which has also launched its own internal investigation.
“The pilots are the only people now who could confirm exactly what happened and so they have to make contact with us, but at the moment we are not in a position to confirm what occurred and so we are waiting on the results of their investigations,” the acting GCAA head said.
Stabroek News understands too that staff at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri had said that one of the pilots, after landing the plane, had refused to continue on with flights but when contacted, Travel Span had said that he was ill. As a result, this newspaper understands, the next flight on December 17 was delayed since another pilot had to be flown in from Trinidad.
Travel Span inaugurated its flights on November 30 with great pomp and ceremony. Since then the Boeing 737-800 has been sampled by many Guyanese who came home for the Christmas season and are still trickling back.
At the inauguration ceremony Tourism Minister Manniram Prashad had referred to the problems government was forced to contend with, with Universal Airlines. He had cautioned: “People come and have big ceremonies like these and by the next two or four years passengers are left stranded and then the next thing you know there are no more flights.” The minister added that he could not avoid mentioning the Universal Airlines debacle.
Travel Span’s Chief Executive Nohar Singh has vowed that the airline will do its best to avoid any such situations.
