Plane dropped from sky seconds after take-off - GCAA source

Plane dropped from sky seconds after take-off – GCAA source

Aug 10, 2017 News

Captain Dominic Waddell

As Captain Dominic Waddell, the pilot in the Eteringbang plane crash continues to recover from minor injuries, it has been revealed that his plane dropped out of the sky—just seconds after he took off from the airstrip on Tuesday.

A source at the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) yesterday revealed that the pilot had not gotten far when the plane fell out of the sky.

Waddell is hospitalized at the Balwant Singh Hospital nursing a broken elbow. He also sprained his ankle and underwent surgery Tuesday night.

According to information received, the 32-year-old pilot took off and shortly after, his plane fell out of the sky and landed on a tree.

Waddell, who was flying a single engine Cessna, managed to get out of the mangled plane and was subsequently rescued by a Roraima Airways pilot and brought to the city. The Wing’s Aviation pilot was on a shuttling mission.

According to the regulator of the sector, the GCAA has launched an investigation to ascertain the circumstances leading to the crash of the CESSNA aircraft-bearing registration number 8R-GPR.

“The accident occurred at approximately 11:00hrs on Tuesday. Preliminary reports indicate that the plane was on a shuttling mission from Eteringbang to Ekereku when the incident occurred. The pilot suffered minor injuries.”

Officials from the Accident and Investigation Group supported by a team from GCAA traveled to the scene of the crash yesterday.

“Further information on this latest incident will be announced when it becomes available.”

Persons said that from initial indications, the plane was already in the air, when after takeoff, it started to go down.

With an increase in gold mining and other activities in recent years, the use of small aircraft to access hinterland areas has become popular but have not been without incidents, with a number of crashes, some of them deadly, recorded.

Late last month, Roraima Airways’ Chief Pilot, Collin Winston Martin, died when the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft he was attempting to land at the Eteringbang airstrip, nose-dived into thick vegetation, a short distance from the runway.

The 40-year-old Martin, a former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer, assumed the role of chief pilot at Roraima Airways in 2015 following the death of Captain Alvin Clarke.

According to information received, Martin was heading to Eteringbang from Ekereku where he had shuttled fuel for miners when the tragedy occurred. He was flying alone.

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