A minor explosion, during routine maintenance and inspection, on a Roraima Group of Companies aircraft yesterday resulted in a maintenance engineer sustaining burns.
The explosion occurred in the company’s hangar at the Eugene F Correia International Airport, Ogle, East Coast Demerara.
Stabroek News understands that engineer David Rampersaud and others were carrying out maintenance work on the aircraft when the explosion occurred.
Rampersaud was working on the Britten Norman Trislander aircraft. This publication understands that Rampersaud put electrical wiring in the wrong circuit, which resulted in a part of the right-side wing component exploding.
A statement from the company said, “…one of our engineers suffered burns to his hand and fractured his ankle. He is currently stable and resting in hospital.”
Stabroek News was told that a female staff member who was on the ground at the time of the inspection and saw what happened, was traumatized. The statement from the company said it was arranging counselling for the maintenance team and all team members affected.
An investigation was immediately launched to determine the exact circumstances surrounding the incident, by Roraima’s Maintenance Quality Department and the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, the release said.
The company praised the heroic efforts of the staff who responded aggressively as trained, using the fire-fighting equipment in the hangar and negating any further injury or damage.
Speaking with this publication, a staff member expressed gratitude for the emergency training that they had received, because the systems were put to the test. “All our emergency systems, drills and training worked,” the staff member said.
Meanwhile, the release said that while the temporary inability to use the aircraft is difficult for the company, its flight operations will not suffer significant disruption.
