One of the survivors of Saturday’s plane crash recalled seeing at least four fire-fighters looking down at her and the others from the edge of the runway, but says they offered no help as more that 150 screaming passengers scrambled to exit the smoking wreckage.
Three days have passed since New Jersey-based Claire Semple’s near death experience, and while she will fly again it will not be on a late-night flight.
Semple had travelled to Guyana from JFK International Airport with her husband, Orin, brother-in-law Myles, and aunt-in-law Betsie Myndyllo, for a family reunion.
Recalling her harrowing experience from her Bent Street home yesterday, she told Stabroek News that the plane was delayed because they checked in late. Once they were on the flight, she added, they joked over making it just in time. She said that they had a smooth flight to Port-of-Spain, where the pilot and crew where changed and the plane was refuelled.
“So, when I read in papers that there was no refuelling in Trinidad, I shocked because I was at a window and I saw when they actually took the hose out of the manhole there and locked it down,” she said.
She noted that shortly before take off, the new pilot announced his name and later as the aircraft was approaching the Cheddi Jagan Inter-national Airport, Timehri, he told them to prepare for landing.
According to Semple, she recalled pointing out the difference in the lighting at the two airports. At the Piarco Airport, she said, it was bright, while at Timehri she saw about ten lights and she was unsure if they were from the airport or nearby houses. She added that the sky appeared foggy, but she was unsure if it was raining at the time.
“The landing took a while and I even heard like something was releasing (the landing gear) and then it was going in, and I quite didn’t know what it was. I turned and I told my husband that something was releasing too soon and it was going in and coming out and he was saying that probably it was the landing gear,” she said, the trauma of her ordeal still evident.
She said that the plane landed and then it was very bumpy. She recalled that it was going very fast and then “everybody lean forward and it was really a lot of chaos.”
She recalled people screaming before the plane came to a halt and she later concluded that the pilot landed at the edge of the runway. She could not remember him saying that anything was wrong up to that point. “I could not recall the pilot saying that something was wrong. I cannot remember hearing any announcement from the pilot at that point, but persons started shouting that the doors should be opened.”
Finally, she said, an emergency door was opened. She said that they did not know at that point that the plane was split in two, although there was a loud impact and smoke was coming from the nose section.
‘Nobody came to help us’
Semple said it was unclear where the flight attendants were at this point, but she noted that many of the passengers ended up on the wing of the aircraft, with some jumping to the sandy ground below. Outside, she noted, it was very dark.
“You could not have seen the airport so we did not have any clue where we were. We could not have seen the airport. People started jumping to the ground and jumping on each other and I decided I am not going to do that. I really wasn’t ready to jump because I was more fearful that I could break a leg or something,” she said.
According to Semple, what was even more disturbing was that there were several firemen in uniform who “just stood there from some high place. They were watching. Nobody came to help us get off the aircraft and this is what was very disturbing for me because I would think that their job is not only to out a fire or to stand there to see if the aircraft is going to go up in flames, they should be doing rescue work as well.”
The woman, who appeared to be upset at this point, noted that the firemen, instead of watching on, should have come to the assistance of the passengers. Other passengers have said that other firemen helped them down from the aircraft. It appears that the firemen Semple referred to were in position just in case a fire broke out.
Semple said that eventually she and her aunt-in-law, who was bleeding from the head, slid down the wing with the assistance of her husband. She added that said there was an airport staffer dressed in a green vest who assisted them with a torchlight. An air hostess also attended to Myndyllo’s wound with a first aid kit.
Semple said that while at the scene at no point did she see the pilot, but was told he was the last to leave the plane. Previous reports had said that he was trapped in the cockpit and had to be cut out of it. Semple said it was only when they were leaving that they realised that the plane had split in two. She said they even saw a policeman in a police car and when they spoke with him, he appeared clueless as to what he should do. She said he did nothing to assist them.
It was a friend who picked them up from the scene and took them to the front of the airport, where Semple saw a fire engine “just moving slowly.” She said that there was no ambulance on the scene and they first saw one in the vicinity of the GDF farm heading to the airport, while they were on their way to the city. She said that she also saw a car transporting the president rushing to the scene.
Not prepared
Semple, who has been travelling from the USA for 15 years without incident, said she was really surprised at the response level.
“I don’t think that we were quite prepared for something like this, because like I said the firemen just stood there…,” she explained.
She noted that the firemen failed in their response efforts along with the GDF, which had a base close by and the police.
“I think they really need to address this… I think that we ought to have been prepared,” she noted, saying that once there are international flights one should be prepared for any disaster. “You don’t know when things are gonna happen,” she stressed.
She also expressed surprise at a report that the pilot claimed there was poor visibility. She said that as a pilot with so much experience, he should have known better and returned to Trinidad.
“If he has poor visibility, you do not do something like that. You supposed to go back to Trinidad. That is what we always would hear”, she said. Semple also believes more improvements need to be made to the airport. She said that since the army has a base close by, it should set up a facility to deal with a situation like this.
She is feeling better since the ordeal and is contemplating attending counselling sessions set up at the Princess Hotel for the passengers.
A shocked looking Myndyllo had said on the morning of the accident that she looked out the window as the plane approached Timehri and saw that it was raining. After a light conversation with a passenger sitting next to her, she heard a screeching sound and “I start calling on God. I said oh God not this, because I had seen what happened on the plane on the Hudson River.” She said that she remembered jerking forward and then back, while the woman next to her was screaming and then pointed out that she was bleeding.
Orin said shortly after that he went back on the wing to get his wife and his brother went back to get Myndyllo, who had a laceration on her head. He said that they had to rush his injured aunt to Woodlands Hospital because there were no medics at the scene up to when they left. “We were calling for medics, we were calling for anybody, firemen nobody was around,” he recalled.
He said that they had to make their own way back to the crash site. He too said that the first ambulance they saw was on the East Bank and up to when they left there were no firemen at the crash site.
