Passengers need not worry about domestic flights

Jan 25, 2014 News

Stakeholders in the local aviation industry are confident that the sector is efficient, reliable and safe with well maintained flying machines and competent personnel to pilot aircraft and monitor air traffic.
Their sentiments contrast the opinions of many passengers who prefer not to the travel with the “small aircraft” transporting passengers to locations in Guyana’s interior. And, recent accidents and incidents involving “small aircraft” have increased their fears.
But stakeholders in the industry believe that it should be appreciated that on a daily basis 150 flights, or more, leave Ogle International Airport and return safely. On average about 1,400 flights travel in and out of the airport monthly carrying about 7,000 passengers.
According to Kit Nascimento, Public Relations Office of Ogle International Airport, given the thousands of flying hours logged by aircraft out of the airport every month by comparison to any statistics anywhere in the world Guyana has one of the safest flight records.
“If you take the thousands of hours flown every year and compare them to the number of accidents per annum, again Guyana would have one of the safest records in the world… Guyana’s safety record for domestic aircraft flying in the hinterland is comparable to northern Canada which has similar conditions,” he said.
He emphasized that Guyana’s pilots are as highly trained as any pilots flying aircraft anywhere in the world. Guyana has an enviable safety record by any international standard. In addition, passengers are much safer flying in an aircraft in Guyana than travelling on the road.
An operator at Ogle International Airport related that the airport’s control tower falls under Guyana Civil Aviation Authority’s supervision. It is staffed with well trained personnel who also execute similar duties at Timehri Air Traffic Control Tower.
The operator added that there are numerous single-engine aircraft traversing Guyana’s airspace. These machines are said to be more efficient, reliable and safe and are not a threat to the safety of passengers.
According to Captain Gerry Gouveia, the Caravan is a new and modern aircraft with jet engines. They are extremely high-tech and reliable. “However, a plane with one engine is still a plane with one engine,” he said. He added that the Caravan is a new state-of-art aircraft that flies all over the world and has been in Guyana since 1995. Gouveia said that even though a machine may be built a certain way it unfortunately fails sometimes.
However, in the case of aircraft with twin-engines, one serves as backup in event that one engine fails. They are more expensive to maintain but it is obviously better than one.
With recent accidents and incidents such as the Matthews Ridge plane crash, where 12 passengers escaped alive and the Mazaruni plane crash, which claimed the lives of a pilot Blake Slater and cargo loader Dwayne Jacobs involving single-engine Cessna Caravans have left many questioning if twin-engine aircraft are better.
According to an observer, the reports of these accidents must be made public so passengers and operators in the industry should know what the root causes for the accidents are. The observer emphasized that the report for the Matthew’s Ridge plane crash was not made public and operators are unaware if the crash was caused by pilot error, weather or a mechanical problem with the aircraft.

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