By Mark McGowan and Alva Solomon
Pandemonium reigned aboard Caribbean Airlines flight BW 524 yesterday morning as passengers came to the horrific realization that the plane was not going to stop as expected after it landed.
But the passengers were even more horrified by the ensuing chaos and the fact that the drivers of several yellow taxis, which reached them before the authorities did, fleeced, rather than assisted them.
Passenger Geeta Ramsingh, who was sitting in the economy class of the aircraft, said she noted that the pilot made a steep and “fast” descent into Timehri in the last 15 minutes of the flight. She said that she was on her way to Guyana from New York for the first time in 4 years and that the plane had made an in-transit stop in Trinidad before continuing to Guyana; an average 1 hour and 10 minutes flight.
Ramsingh said that as the aircraft descended towards the runway, she observed the houses and lights in the vicinity “moving very fast”. At the time, she said, she thought it was a normal landing.
However, she said that as the aircraft touched the runway it rolled for less than 10 seconds, and then “like he pick up a sudden speed again and all I see is we heading to some hilly slope at the end there.”
She said that to her horror, “the whole plane just split in two,” adding that pandemonium broke out as the incident was occurring. “People start screaming. A lot of little children were on that flight and it was horrible.”
The traumatized Ramsingh said that she clambered onto the wing of the aircraft but before she could get down, another passenger, a male, “climb on me and jump out ahead of me! Was madness!”
She said she summoned help and after waiting for more than 10 minutes several cars arrived at the scene.
Ramsingh said she got into a yellow taxi, “but what makes it more embarrassing is the guy, he asked us to pay US$20 fare to get over to the terminal. What madness is that?”
She was also critical of the response efforts by the authorities, adding that they seemed ill-prepared to handle disasters of a such nature.
Ramsingh sustained a deep cut to her knee, and she said she had pains about her body which were a result of the impact.
Another passenger, Patricia Pile, also supported Ramsingh’s views. “All systems failed here. Is like they do not even know how to handle the situation,” she said.
‘Boom’
Two other passengers, Pastor Michael Nedd and his wife Deborah, were grateful to God for their narrow escape.
Pastor Nedd said that what had happened was unexpected. “We were coming in at 1.30 am I didn’t know something was wrong, but I was telling my wife, wow we are coming in very fast,” he said. According to him, the aircraft hit the runway very hard and he could subsequently feel the captain braking very hard.
“Suddenly we hear this boom, and everybody start to scream. You hear the women screaming; you hear the children screaming. You could hear pandemonium,” he recalled. According to him, during this time many persons’ heads kept slamming into the seats in front of them.
Nedd, who was sitting at an emergency exit, said he rushed to open the door as soon as the plane stopped. “Just as what they told me, I pushed my hands over and pulled the lever and the door fly up. By the time the door flew out and I got up, people were pushing me trying to get out in front of me. And the hole was small, so I looking for my wife because I just don’t want to go down,” he said. He then jumped from the wing of the plane and asked his wife to follow. She landed on top of him.
“We run away [from the aircraft]. We were on a dirt road at the back there and the place was so dark. We didn’t know where we were going,” he said.
He said some people from the neighbourhood came out because they had heard the explosion and he borrowed a cellular phone from one of the residents and contacted his son, who had gone to the airport to meet them.
Another passenger, Clairmonte Belle, said that after the crash he opened an emergency exit and jumped off the plane before turning back to help others. The well-built man said that while he helped some down by holding their hands he had to lift some of the passengers off the plane. He too recounted that the following the crash, the situation was very chaotic.
Passenger Alain Scott told Stabroek News that he was seated towards the front of the plane and it was raining at the time.
“When it landed, I thought it was a jungle,” he said. He said the plane crashed through a fence and broke. He recounted that there was massive confusion in the plane as the cockpit caved in. “Everybody was trying to get off in case there was a fire,” he said. The flight was full, he recounted.
He said that given the situation before landing he expected the pilot to go back to Trinidad. He was among the first to exit the plane (he was a first class passenger), and could smell fuel.
Poor emergency response
Meanwhile, other persons were critical of the entire situation. Most stated that taxi cabs and other members of the public should not have been allowed by the airport staff to venture close to the crash site, since this would have increased the fears of already traumatized passengers, of looting. It was noted too by persons at the scene, that the emergency response system at the airport needed to be upgraded significantly, since a more serious situation would have resulted in more dire consequences.
When this newspaper arrived at the scene yesterday morning, police and airport security officials had cordoned off the entire perimeter of the airport while all flights were either delayed or cancelled, including a Delta Airlines flight which was expected at Timehri around 6.40 am yesterday from JFK airport in New York. Two Caribbean airlines flights were also cancelled yesterday, this newspaper was told.
There was massive congestion at the departure and arrival lounges of the terminal building as persons intending to travel and those awaiting their loved ones packed the area to get word on the situation.
Top brass meeting
President Bharrat Jagdeo and the top brass of the security forces, including Commodore Gary Best of the GDF, Police Commissioner Henry Greene, and airport officials were locked in a meeting for more than an hour as the head of state was being briefed on the situation.
The President emerged from the VIP lounge as daylight stepped in and spoke with passengers and persons awaiting their relatives as well as those accompanying their loved ones to the airport. He was annoyed that the airport staff had not taken control of the situation and it was only after he asked several questions, that operations got into motion, as the public address system began to air messages regarding the status of departing and arriving flights.
The President spoke briefly to the media stating “basically it’s the safety people planning their course of action at the moment”. He said the officials were making preparations to launch an entire investigation into the incident, adding that the US National Transportation and Safety Board had been contacted on the incident while regional aviation bodies were also on the case. He said too that the investigation team was cognizant that the airport needed to function at the time, adding that he had not spoken to the pilots or other officials who were on board, but the investigators were expected to.
The President assured those present that all efforts will be made to arrive at the cause of yesterday morning’s incident.
Disgruntled passengers asked numerous questions as regards their luggage as the situation dragged on, but this newspaper understands that several procedures, including those carried out by the investigators and airline staff had to be followed by protocol before passengers’ luggage could have been returned to them.
Operations were being restored some time after 8 am yesterday as a LIAT Airlines aircraft passed overhead the airport for landing on the adjacent runway, 11/29 which can only accommodate the Dash 8 type aircraft and smaller models.
According to airport sources, the tail of the damaged Caribbean Airlines aircraft was resting within a protected airspace zone at the end of the main runway 06 where the incident occurred and as such, the threshold of the runway was displaced by some 500 feet.
Yesterday’s incident, though non-fatal, was described by persons in the aviation sector as one of the worst to have occurred here in the aviation history of Guyana.
