Plane found at illegal airstrip…Aircraft was fitted with extra fuel tanks

Nov 01, 2012 News

The Cessna 421 high performance aircraft, which has been recovered from an illegal airstrip in Region Nine was purposely modified to permit long distance flying.
This was disclosed by Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon at his post Cabinet media briefing yesterday.
“It is almost similar to the Cessna that we found abandoned at Kwapau… the same modification, extra fuel tanks, pumps to facilitate much longer flying hours than the industrial-type tank capacity would provide,” Dr. Luncheon told journalists.
Of equal concern to the administration is the attempt to disguise the aircraft by re-painting it with a different colour and changing the original external numbering to conceal the registration.

Brazilian pilot Goncalo Ferreira Lima Neto

According to the Cabinet Secretary, the new numbering is linked to Venezuela.
Dr. Luncheon is of the view that despite the initial report by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority that the aircraft arrived in Guyana on a normal technical stop from Trinidad, the main reason for it being here is much more clandestine.
He did not say what the real purpose was for the aircraft being here, a position that investigators are still trying to ascertain, although there are reports that a sale was being arranged locally.
Dr. Luncheon pointed to the fact that the aircraft was in Guyana for months.
This would have provided ample time for modifications, such as those discovered on the craft, to be done, for a specific purpose.
“I find it difficult to believe, that like a human being, it might have changed its motives and its mind from what it was intended for months ago to today. There is a strong sentiment that it was here for a specific purpose, and over time, it was slowly implemented, leading to what happened over the most recent weekend,” Luncheon declared.
According to Dr. Luncheon, the big question is, “How is it possible that the aircraft was here for two months for a specific purpose and this was not disclosed until now?”
He said that an inquiry will have to be conducted to ascertain some puzzling facts.
Officials from the Caribbean Aviation Maintenance Services (CAMS) had told this newspaper that the company was contracted to conduct a pre-purchase examination of the aircraft when it arrived in Guyana.
Company spokesman, Kit Nascimento, yesterday confirmed that the examination was done and a certificate issued for which the company was paid.
Nascimento said that when the examination was done, the aircraft was not fitted with any modified fuel tank.
“The aircraft came to CAMS for an airworthiness inspection, which was done and paid for. At that time, it did not have any extra fuel tank,” Nascimento told this newspaper.
When asked who requested the inspection and who paid for it, Nascimento said that bit of information is not one that the company is prepared to divulge publicly at the moment.
“CAMS is working in close collaboration and fully cooperating with the civil aviation and security authorities who are investigating this matter,” Nascimento said.
Investigators are working on the theory that the plane was modified at the Ogle airport after the pre-purchase inspection.
Kaieteur News understands that investigators have expressed an interest in a Jamaica-born pilot who was working with a local aviation company up to a month ago.
They believe that the man could provide them with some vital information on the origin of the aircraft and the reason for it being in Guyana in the first place.
The Brazilian pilot, Goncalo Ferreira Lima Neto, 42, who had flown the aircraft to Guyana and who flew it from the Ogle airport last Saturday, has disappeared.
On Saturday the aircraft with the registration 8CCIK, departed the Ogle Airport on a 90-minute flight to Boa Vista, Brazil.
Three hours later, the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority declared the aircraft missing and efforts to locate it along the planned fight path were initially unsuccessful.
Some time Sunday morning the rescue coordination centre was fully activated and the search for the aircraft intensified.
Works Minister Robeson Benn had said that there was a report of the aircraft being in an area, just south of Mahdia, Potaro. Then contact was made with the pilot on Sunday morning, but according to the Minister, there was some garbled explanation as to the location of the aircraft.
However the information garnered was mostly inaudible and of little value in terms of locating the aircraft.
“And there was concern later in the day as to the activities of the aircraft, since the Air Traffic Controls and the rescue coordination centre’s vectoring of aircraft into various parts of Region Eight and where it was presumed that the aircraft was, were unsuccessful, in terms of identifying the aircraft on the ground.”
But further vectoring towards the south of the flight path, in the Rupununi Region, authorities discovered the aircraft on an illegal airstrip east of Pirara, and according to Benn “activities of some great concern were underway.”
There were reports that vehicles were seen near the aircraft when it was first spotted, suggesting that the stop was a well planned one.
“All that we are prepared to say is that he did not arrive where he should have arrived and the explanations that were given did not gel with what was seen in terms of the activity at the aircraft and also, too, in terms of where he should have been when he called in yesterday (Sunday) morning.
He said that as soon as this was relayed to senior security personnel, an operation was launched to seize the aircraft.
Local authorities have been in contact with their counterparts in Brazil, Venezuela, Suriname and Ecuador for assistance in the matter.