The Story within the Story…Safety and aviation: Deadly wake-up calls for action

Sep 03, 2017 News

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By Leonard Gildarie
Sometimes it can become quite overwhelming for news people.

I believe that I am a seasoned reporter with the things I have seen and heard over the past decade. Dead bodies, burial ground exhumations and autopsies, gunfire, threats from politicians…it has not been easy. Sometimes, the grind can get to you.
We cried in the office when images of the Lusignan massacre surfaced. The shock of the Bartica attack weeks later numbed us. They were images that have remained fixed in our minds.
I travelled to Bartica the next morning and saw bodies being piled into a boat to be taken away.
On Friday, Guyana awoke to the news that a young couple, one a former cop turned security guard, and the other his girlfriend, had perished in an accident on the Railway Embankment.
She was 20 and preparing to be enlisted as a police rank.
The couple, in the prime of their lives, was reportedly at a hang at the Plaisance line top area.
They were coming back when they smashed into a car. The driver of the car was tested and found to be above the alcohol limit.
Two young Guyanese whose promising futures were cut short suddenly. They would have had dreams.
We heard of a few other accidents this past week too. Like the biker who ended up in the back of a container truck at Airy Hall, Mahaicony. And the other who died on the East Coast after he smashed into a car which turned in front of him.
On the East Bank of Demerara, a highway resident lost his life after his car crashed at Land of Canaan.
The past weekend, we learnt of a pilot, Imran Khan, described as experienced, who crashed while flying in the Region Eight area. He was an Air Services Limited pilot.
Fortunately, the family can get closure, as the ill-fated plane was found hours after, an exception to a few flights which were never found in the dense Amazonian forest.
Weeks before, in late July, Roraima Airways’ chief pilot, 40-year-old Collin Winston Martin, crashed shortly after takeoff from the Eteringbang airstrip. He too, unfortunately, did not make it.
For the year, there have been a number of other aircraft incidents. One prominent gold miner is still nursing a broken hip after the plane he was in crashed. And there are others.
I recalled one time flying in to Lethem, and watching in alarm as cows grazed on the open field next to the airstrip. I briefly wondered what would happen if one ventured across the runway.
I have not been on a plane to the hinterland for a while, and have no plans to do so now.
With regard to the motorcycle accidents, it is my firm belief that many of them can be avoided. I will anger people with what I have to say now, but it is the harsh truth.
Daily, I drive to work. Starting at Diamond, I see madness. Taxis that overtake a long line, going God knows where.
I see motorcyclists, quite a few without helmets, dodging holes and zipping in and out of traffic.
I can ride. About eight years ago, while building my home at La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, I was forced to buy a motorcycle because of the congestion on the Harbour Bridge and the need to visit the worksite.
I fell one time on the Harbour Bridge and twice more on the bridge leading to the home, along the Canal One road.
Handling a bike is no child’s play. Thousands of bikes are being registered annually. It is not an unusual sight in some farming villages to see a 13-year-old towing his siblings, all without helmets.
What is even more worrying is drinking and riding. There is nothing quite like a bike ride.
Add some alcohol and the combination is highly dangerous, as is evidenced from the number of accidents.
The recent biker accident at Airy Hall, involving a container truck, is a worrying case of what transpires each week. Eyewitnesses would tell you of the speed that bikers overtake vehicles and cut into traffic to avoid oncoming vehicles.
We have some popular hangout spots on the Soesdyke/Linden highway. Every Sunday, there is a gang of them that speed past heading that way. The beers and Guinness are flowing freely there. Many of the riders are without helmets.
Daily, I see young drivers in control of taxis and minibuses. It is madness on the road, with switching lanes adding to the frustration.
In the media, you hear of all kinds of things. For example, people in the past journeying to other jurisdictions to apply for a driver’s licence, because things are much easier there and the scrutiny is not that much.
Surely, our systems of scrutinizing who are qualified for licences need to be reviewed and improved.
With regards to the incidents in the aviation sector, I believe that the regulators must look at the correlation between the state of the hinterland roads and increase of shuttle flights.
Immediate training should be held for cargo handlers and pilots to remind them of safety measures.
Maintenance is nothing to trifle with when it comes to aircraft. One little error can lead to deaths.
The top five causes of accidents, according to my research, include pilot error, mechanical failure, weather, sabotage and other human errors.
Human error includes among other things, mistakes made by air traffic controllers, dispatchers, loaders, fuellers or maintenance engineers.
We have to determine whether we are doing enough to ensure that procedures are followed and that aircraft are maintained accordingly.
Are things happening in the hinterland that nobody knows about with pilots? I am being told that it is easy to fly from one area to the next without being noticed.
Operators need to start keeping a tighter rein on where their aircraft are located.
There are many things that the Civil Aviation Authority needs to be doing.
I am not sure what impact, if any, the temporary ban on shuttle flights will have on the bottom-line of operators. What I do know is that the current actions are a needed start for the industry to understand that safety is paramount.
We can ill-afford to make mistakes. Rescue operations are expensive and risky, especially if the terrain is taken into context. We are not even talking about the traumatic experience that these road accidents and aircraft accidents have on the lives of loved ones and work colleagues.
We can take a little more care.

 

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