‘An absolute miracle!’ says CAL chairman in aftermath of crash

Less than 48 hours after Caribbean Airlines celebrated the newest Boeing 737-800 to its fleet, their happiness turned to tragedy with the crash of one of their carriers at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) in Guyana.

“It’s an absolute miracle what happened here in Georgetown,” CAL’s chairman George Nicholas told the media yesterday.

“Those words by the Caribbean Airlines chairman sum up the outcome of a plane crash with 151 passengers that saw no fatalities and two cases of serious injury,” Guyana’s Kaieteur News’ Neil Marks told reporters.

Nicholas announced plans of putting together a team of psychologists and other health personnel to counsel passengers and crew members.

He reportedly was not immediately prepared to say what caused the crash. The US National Transportation Safety Board and Guyanese Civil Aviation Authorities will be probing the crash that occurred at around 1:32 a.m. Saturday.

Up to press time yesterday, the local army and police had secured the scene of the crash, awaiting the retrieval of the black box and voice data recorder, said Marks.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, ran off the runway and broke into two. Apart from passengers, the other people on board were six crew members.

The accident affected all flights coming into Guyana for a few hours, but the airport was operating as normal again. The Cheddi Jagan International Airport is the country’s only international airport.

Marks said one female passenger said she heard a loud sound when the plane landed at about 1:32 Saturday morning. She said that everyone, including herself, began screaming. “It was terror,” she said. “I was praying to Jesus.”

The woman, who said the turbulence started after the flight departed Trinidad, said that she was sitting near the emergency exit with her husband, who opened the emergency door and passengers began exiting the plane. She was complaining of pains to the stomach, which were inflicted by her seatbelt when she was flung forward.

The flight was BW523, en route from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to Georgetown. It had originally left JFK to Trinidad.

In a statement to the media, Caribbean Airlines said it immediately activated its emergency response programme and was in direct contact with the relevant authorities. “The airline’s primary concern at this time is for those on board the aircraft and their families.”

It said that emergency response teams at CJIA were activated and all passengers and crew had been evacuated.

Source: The Gleaner