Gail Alexan­der

A pre­lim­i­nary re­port from avi­a­tion ex­perts on Sat­ur­day's mirac­u­lous land­ing of Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) flight BY 523 at the Ched­di Ja­gan In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, is ex­pect­ed to be ready in "a cou­ple days" and fur­ther tech­ni­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions will fol­low, ac­cord­ing to Guyana's Trans­port Min­is­ter Robe­son Benn. Benn spoke to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day morn­ing about the probe by an pan­el of ex­perts from Guyana, T&T and the Unit­ed States. The team has launched an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Sat­ur­day's ear­ly morn­ing "crash" land­ing. The plane end­ed up frac­tured, flat on the ground. But there were no fa­tal­i­ties in what US me­dia sta­tions in­clud­ing CNN and FOX News deemed a "mirac­u­lous land­ing." In an in­ter­view with the Guardian at around 7 am yes­ter­day Benn said: "The plane is a beau­ti­ful air­craft but it's a to­tal loss-even your Prime Min­is­ter was in shock when she went to see it on Sat­ur­day evening."

Benn's words cor­rob­o­rat­ed the view ex­pressed by T&T Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials who vis­it­ed the wreck­age with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sat­ur­day. Benn said the mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary probe team, head­ed by Guyana's di­rec­tor of Air Safe­ty Paula McAdams, com­pris­es 15 of­fi­cials. They in­clude ex­perts from the US Na­tion­al Trans­port Safe­ty Board, Guyana's Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Board, Suri­namese avi­a­tion ex­perts and oth­er di­vi­sions, as well as T&T's head of Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, Ramesh Lutch­me­di­al and of­fi­cials of Boe­ing, the air­craft's man­u­fac­tur­ers. The four Boe­ing of­fi­cials ar­rived in Guyana on Sat­ur­day im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the crash. Benn said fol­low­ing the pre­lim­i­nary re­port, fur­ther tech­ni­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions-and sub­mis­sion of ad­min­is­tra­tive re­ports-a fi­nal re­port will be hand­ed in. He could not give an ex­act date.

How­ev­er, Benn as­sured that the sit­u­a­tion would be com­plet­ed as soon as pos­si­ble. Benn said the six mem­bers of the T&T flight crew head­ed by cap­tain Fa­reed Dean, in­clud­ing four fe­male flight at­ten­dants, will re­main in Guyana for in­ter­views. He said the flight crew is ex­pect­ed to re­turn home by Wednes­day.

Benn said the Guyanese au­thor­i­ties start­ed to re­move the wreck­age of the air­craft's rud­der and tail but this was halt­ed in or­der to do the de­tailed probe. Fol­low­ing the probe, the wreck­age of the plane could ei­ther be re­moved to an­oth­er lo­ca­tion or brought back to T&T.

Benn de­nied ini­tial wide­spread re­ports that there was fog at the air­port at the time the plane land­ed. He, how­ev­er, con­firmed that there had been "light rain." Asked about the land­ing con­di­tions at the Ched­di Ja­gan Air­port, Benn said all sys­tems were in or­der. He said: "Of­fi­cials at the air­port had done a re­port on all the sys­tems at the time the ac­ci­dent and they are do­ing fur­ther probes of the pro­to­cols so we can im­prove in the event of a sim­i­lar oc­cur­rence." Benn not­ed that Guyana had not ex­pe­ri­enced such an oc­cur­rence in re­cent times. He said the last time he re­called such a sit­u­a­tion was in 1984 when a DC 10 air­craft land­ed and went off in­to some sand along­side the run­way. All pas­sen­gers were un­harmed in that in­ci­dent.