Gouveia defends use of helicopter suggestions

Nov 19, 2009 News

A photograph of Kaieteur Falls taken with Aliya Bulkan’s camera shortly before she jumped

Managing Director of Roraima Airways, Captain Gerry Gouveia, is taking issues with the pronouncement by the Guyana Defence Force team leader of the Kaieteur Falls body recovery mission, Capt Sheldon Howell, over the use of the army helicopter.

Howell had said that atmospheric conditions in the Kaieteur gorge and the absence of support for a rappelling team ruled out the use of the army helicopters.

“I don’t think that Mr. Gouveia has ever journeyed to the bottom of Kaieteur,” Captain Howell had stated.

He explained that a risk analysis was done and there were several reasons why the helicopter could not have been used.

According to Howell in the first instance the terrain made it impossible for the soldiers or the helicopter to land anywhere near the area of operation at the base of the falls.

He said that in addition to this, the GDF helicopter is a surveillance asset and it does not have rappelling capabilities.

“And the atmospheric conditions with the turbulence in the gorge would have caused that helicopter to go down, and anybody who suggested that the helicopter could have gone down there, I don’t think they know what

they are talking about,” Captain Howell stated.

Gouveia dismissed the remarks as coming from an ill-informed infantry soldier. He countered, “He’s got no technical competence or experience to talk about this and it disappoints me that such a professional infantry officer would venture into an area that is way outside of his capacity.”

According to Gouveia the helicopter that is in the possession of the GDF was suitable for the role of recovering the body since it is small and could have landed at the top of Kaieteur Falls with minimum fuel.

“It’s a three-minute flight from top to bottom of Kaieteur Falls. It didn’t have to land on the rocks.

You have two men on the helicopter and it didn’t have to go right into the waterfall either. It could have hovered away from the waterfall and the men could have rappelled down.

So you would have been saving a lot of time by doing that.” “It comes down to the pilot. If the pilot didn’t have confidence in himself and his machine, that’s fine. We can’t force him but we have other people we could have called on,” Gouviea explained.