GUYANA: Two pilots die in Plaisance plane crash
Two pilots have been killed after their United States-registered airplane crashed into a house at Plaisance shortly after take off from the Ogle International Airport.
69-year old Florence Dyer-Tyndall, who was at the rear of the wooden house on Graham Street, cheated death by running out of the burning building.
The US-registered aircraft crashed into the house with just the two crew members on board shortly before 3PM Demerara Waves learnt. Except for the engines, the remainder of the twin-engine Piper Aztec aircraft was destroyed beyond recognition.
Transport Minister Robeson Benn said the pilot and co-pilot perished but he declined to release their names before a local embassy and family members were notified. He said the cause of the crash appeared to have been engine failure. “It took off with six hours of fuel from Ogle Airportand it looks like it lost an engine and then crashed,” Benn told reporters at the scene of the crash.
He confirmed that the plane was on a technical survey mission for the Amaila Falls hydropower access road to do a LIDAR survey for the best geometrical and other alignments for the road.
The craft has been identified as a twin-engine Piper Aztec with registration number N27-FT. An internet search revealed that the plane belonged to the Miami-based Angiel EnviroSafe Inc, which offers aerial camera platform services.
Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Zulfikar Mohammed said investigators would be going through the rubble and taking eyewitness accounts. “We have to go through the site and look at whatever is available and use first hand information –observers information- and you take whatever is available there and do an analysis.
“We have to retrieve the engines to ensure that that is properly examined to determine if that was part of the cause of the accident,” he said. Mohammed said the plane was about to embark on a second mission for the day after having just refuelled.
A distraught Dyer-Tyndall, who was being comforted in a nearby yard by relatives and villagers, briefly recounted her experience to reporters. “I was taking off my skirt to change my clothes and I heard like a ‘boom’ and I asked was ‘who shooting?’ and when I do look, the house rock.
“I say ‘eh, eh is what is this?’ and then I saw the fire to the wall and then something go ‘boom’ again and I run out because I was standing to the back door and I ran through the fence and the whole house was on fire,” she said.
Tyndall, who is a former care-giver, lived in the house with her three grandchildren.
High-ranking officers of the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force and the Guyana Fire Service were on the scene. The crash-site was expected to be secured to avoid further contamination by hundreds of residents who rushed to the scene.
Firefighters were joined at the scene by Transport Minister Robeson Benn, the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority Zulficar Mohammed and other highranking officials.
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