The search for the missing Air Services Limited (ASL) plane is continuing despite incessant rainfall in Mahdia.
ASL General Manager Annette Arjoon-Martins confirmed yesterday that the ground search for the plane and its pilot and cargo handler was ongoing and they were awaiting word from the ground team.
A team of Guyana Defence Force soldiers was flown into the area from Timehri on Wednesday to join the ground search.
The plane, a Britten-Norman Islander, lost contact with air traffic controllers on December 28, 2014 as it was travelling over the Potaro-Siparuni jungle. Communication was cut about two minutes after its takeoff from Mahdia to Karisparu, both in Region Eight, at around 11:45am.
Twenty-eight-year-old Captain Nicholas Persaud and 51-year-old David Bisnauth, the cargo handler, were the only persons onboard that plane.
Special Forces’ ranks, Guyana Forestry Commission officers and line cutters from St Cuthbert’s Mission have been combing a large area between North Fork and Black Water rivers. Villagers had also joined the search.
Bisnauth’s sister, Nalini Bisnauth, is counting the days, while hoping that the rescue team would find her brother. “It’s two weeks and my brother is nowhere to be found. I’m hoping that they will find him and the pilot,” she said.
Bisnauth said she is getting anxious as the days go by and she believed that the ground team should step up their search. “They are moving too slow to find them. We don’t know if they are injured or if they are dead. If he is dead what will they bring back to me?” she asked.
She said she was told that the air search had stopped and so they were depending solely on the ground team to find any sight of the plane. “I am very concerned about his safety and I have all hopes in the creator that he will come back, but at the same time I’m having doubts,” she said.
She said she was also worried about the pilot and what his family must be going through at this time.
She said one of Persaud’s brothers was also a part of the rescue team.
On Thursday, the ground search was suspended after the area was hit by incessant rainfall.
