Fuel starvation is suspected to be the main contributor to last Saturday’s crash-landing of Roraima Airways’ Britten-Norman Trislander at Eccles, East Bank Demerara, preliminary investigations by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have found, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill said.
Speaking with Stabroek News, Edghill said that he is awaiting the official report of the probe to confirm the findings. He noted that he has already appointed an investigator to conduct an independent probe.
Fuel starvation in aviation terms is usually described as the failure of the fuel system to supply adequate fuel to allow the engine to run properly, for example due to blockage, malfunction of the pump or a vapour lock, leading to loss of power or engine stoppage.
Roraima Airways owner, Captain Gerry Gouveia when contacted yesterday said from checks, the aircraft had about 40 minutes of fuel left. He declined to comment further on the investigations.
According to Edghill, once the report is completed it will be made available to the public. The Public Works Minister when asked if there is any timespan for the investigation to be concluded responded in the negative and said that there are a number of components that need to be covered in the investigation. He said too that in some cases, queries will have to be sent to the manufacturer of the aircraft. With these factors a timeline could not be fixed, he said.
Meanwhile, Gouveia said that a day after the Roraima Trislander fleet was grounded and the GCAA conducted their inspections, the ban on flying was lifted.
The plane crash-landed in the vicinity of the Haags Bosch landfill facility on the East Bank of Demerara, raising concerns about what might have gone wrong and the extremely close shave for the two crew and three passengers, one of whom sustained injuries.
The injured person who was hospitalised during the course of last week has since been discharged.
The aircraft was forced to crash-land in a swamp-like area after it reportedly experienced difficulties. The crash-landing of the Britten-Norman Trislander bearing registration No. 8R GRE occurred at around 11.30 am as the aircraft was en route to the Eugene F. Correia International Airport, Ogle. It had departed Imbaimadai in Region Seven, around 10.20 am.
A short video of the crash-landing, which was circulated on Facebook and seen by the Sunday Stabroek, showed the plane descending and landing amongst thick vegetation. It remained intact even after it crash-landed.
There were two adult passengers, a two-year-old child and two crew members on board at the time.
Immediately after the incident, a search and rescue operation was activated by the Timehri Control Tower and ranks from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the Guyana Police Force were mobilized and dispatched to the scene.
The injured persons were transported by a GDF helicopter to Camp Ayanganna and later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital for medical evaluation.
The crash-landing follows three other aviation incidents recently which are being investigated by the GCAA.
