Asha Javeed

"It's a mir­a­cle. I am not the on­ly one who's alive. Every­one got away with their life. Nowhere in the world does that hap­pen when a plane crash­es," said 54 year-old Michael Nedd yes­ter­day. Nedd, who re­turned to Guyana from a five-week vis­it to the Unit­ed States, was one of 163 peo­ple who sur­vived the rough land­ing of Caribbean Air­lines' (CAL) flight BW523 at the Ched­di Ja­gan In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port (CJIA), Timehri, yes­ter­day morn­ing. Nedd, still in shock but hap­py for life, was among the pas­sen­gers who pulled the emer­gency ex­it door when the pi­lot failed to stop the Boe­ing 737 air­craft on the run­way at the CJIA. CAL, in a me­dia state­ment, said one of its nine Boe­ing 737-800s orig­i­nat­ing in New York for Trinidad and To­ba­go en route to Guyana, was in­volved in a "run­way ex­cur­sion" at the CJIA in Guyana at 1.32 yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Re­ports from Guyana say the air­craft over­shot the 7,400-foot (2,200-me­tre) run­way bare­ly miss­ing a 200-foot (60-me­tre) ravine which could have re­sult­ed in dozens of fa­tal­i­ties. The plane broke in­to two caus­ing in­juries to pas­sen­gers but no fa­tal­i­ties. "The pi­lot came down very hard. He was brak­ing all the time and peo­ple were hit­ting their heads against the seats. The next thing I saw was the whole front of the plane fall apart. I thought to my­self that we're all dead now," he said. "I pulled the emer­gency door and then I looked for my wife who was sit­ting next to me. I jumped down and I fell and rolled un­der the plane. Then my wife jumped and fell on top of me. We both moved away from the plane," he said. Nedd said he was still sur­prised over the in­ci­dent be­cause the pi­lot nev­er in­di­cat­ed there was a prob­lem be­fore he at­tempt­ed to land the air­craft. He point­ed out there was a pi­lot change at Pi­ar­co.

"We didn't hear a word from him. Maybe he didn't have time to do that. But we re­alised that some­thing was wrong," he ex­plained. "It was a hor­ri­ble ex­pe­ri­ence. Women were scream­ing. Ba­bies were cry­ing. The plane did not cir­cle around. It came down too fast, too hard and too short. Some­thing went wrong. We don't know what hap­pened. We didn't see him (the pi­lot) af­ter," he ob­served. Nedd said the chute at the back of the plane de­ployed be­cause some­one else at the rear of the air­craft had opened that emer­gency door. This, he said, en­abled some pas­sen­gers to slide down from the air­craft but most of them had to jump. He point­ed out that "sandy" land next to air­port made jump­ing from the air­craft eas­i­er. "We had to get away. The en­gine was spark­ing and we could smell the fu­el in the air. There was one pas­sen­ger who was in a wheel­chair. I don't know how she got out. Some­one must have helped her. I know she came out," he said.

Nedd said they wait­ed for about two hours for help. Over 101 pas­sen­gers were treat­ed at two hos­pi­tals-the Di­a­mond Di­ag­not­ic Cen­tre and the George­town Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal (GPH). Five re­mained ward­ed at the GPH up to press time. Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz, who was in Guyana on gov­ern­ment busi­ness, vis­it­ed some of the pas­sen­gers at the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day. "Every­thing's more of less set­tled. Every­one's be­ing looked af­ter," he said. Cadiz point­ed out that most of the in­juries arose from pas­sen­gers who were try­ing to get out of the air­craft and not from the in­ci­dent it­self. "It's a trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence. Es­pe­cial­ly for an air­line that's had such a flaw­less record from BWIA to now," he said.

In April, a CAL flight from Guyana to Pi­ar­co had to turn around when an en­gine sucked in a bird. The bird strike dis­abled the left en­gine of the air­craft re­sult­ing in an emer­gency land­ing in Guyana, 11 min­utes in flight. The CJIA re-opened at 10 am yes­ter­day af­ter sus­pend­ing flights in the wake of the in­ci­dent while an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was be­ing con­duct­ed. CAL said the perime­ter around the air­craft was cor­doned off and be­ing guard­ed by the Guyana De­fence Force and po­lice. A Delta Air­lines flight to George­town had to be re-rout­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing. By mid­day two ful­ly booked flights, one from Li­at and the oth­er from CAL, left Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port Guyana bound. A third was sched­uled for de­par­ture at 8 pm.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions be­gins

Mean­while, Guyana's Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty and the US Na­tion­al Trans­port Safe­ty Board will be­gin in­ves­ti­ga­tions to­day. Rood­lal Mooni­lal, Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment who was al­so in Guyana on gov­ern­ment busi­ness, said he's very grate­ful no one was killed. He said the black box from the air­craft will be shipped to the US for analy­sis to­day. He said the crew will al­so have to be in­ter­viewed as part of the process to un­der­stand how the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

"That's the nor­mal type of analy­sis that's done when these ac­ci­dents oc­cur," he said. "I've seen the air­craft up close. And hav­ing seen the wreck­age, it's an act of God that no one or no group of peo­ple lost their lives," he said. Mooni­lal ob­served that it was the worst in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the ma­jor­i­ty State-owned air­line. Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said T&T's Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty will al­so pro­vide as­sis­tance as the air­craft be­longs to this coun­try. Di­rec­tor of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, Ramesh Lutch­me­di­al said he's in Guyana to as­sist in the mat­ter.

Prime Min­is­ter vis­its

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar and a Gov­ern­ment team com­pris­ing For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Sura­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vi­sor Gary Grif­fith and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel vis­it­ed Guyana last night.

She told the me­dia yes­ter­day she was grate­ful that every­one is alive. "There's no doubt they were trau­ma­tised. It's a na­ture of a mir­a­cle that all are alive," she said min­utes be­fore she de­part­ed for Guyana. Mooni­lal said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would vis­it the dam­aged air­craft and in­jured pas­sen­gers at the George­town Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal.

CAL's state­ment

CAL was very pro-ac­tive in re­spond­ing is­su­ing three me­dia re­leas­es and hold­ing three news con­fer­ences-one yes­ter­day morn­ing and the oth­er last evening at Pi­ar­co. Top of­fi­cials of the com­pa­ny al­so held a news con­fer­ence in Guyana around noon yes­ter­day. In its third state­ment yes­ter­day, the air­line said it "un­der­stands the pub­lic's de­sire to gain in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to this event and is ful­ly com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing de­tails. We are guid­ed by both Guyanese and US au­thor­i­ties which lim­its our avail­abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate de­tails of the event un­less they are con­firmed by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties."