COI finds…GCAA has no technology to detect illegal planes

Nov 19, 2017 News

A Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the discovery of a foreign aircraft partly covered on the ground near to the village of Yupukari, Region Nine in 2016, has found that the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has no advanced technology to detect illegal entry of planes.
The aircraft was discovered on September 13, 2016 by the Guyana Police Force (GPF). The COI was constituted for the purpose of investigating, examining, advising and reporting all the circumstances in which the aircraft entered the country.
The COI found that the GCAA’s most advanced technology capable of monitoring Guyana’s airspace is the Automatic Dependent Surveillance—Broadcast (ADS-B) system and while this is capable of monitoring the country’s airspace, it is not suited to monitoring, moreover, detecting any plane bent on intrusion.

The plane that was found in 2016

This was one of the reasons why the aircraft, which departed Colombia on August 18, 2016 entered the country undetected.
Additionally, the COI found that the illegal plane was piloted by a tall “white” man of Brazilian descent and accompanied by a short, slim woman believed to be of mixed Columbian descent with long black hair.
During the investigation, it was difficult to trace the activities of the plane after it was sold to the Mexican buyer in 2015. The aircraft can only be accounted for when it departed Colombia for Guyana.
The COI found that the aircraft developed a port engine failure causing the pilot(s) to attempt a restart (air-start). When that failed, and knowing that the pressurization of the aircraft at that height required both engines to function, the pilot(s) made an emergency descent to a lower level he considered to be safe.
The COI report further stated that the plane continued along its flight path limping on one-engine until it landed on an illegal airstrip in Guyana. It entered the country’s airspace undetected by any of the state agencies who had that responsibility.