Gail Alexan­der

Noel El­liot, the Guyanese na­tion­al who suf­fered the most in­jury in last Sat­ur­day's in­ci­dent of Caribbean Air­lines BW 523 has told the Gov­ern­ment that he will con­tin­ue trav­el­ling on CAL, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day. "Caribbean Air­lines and its pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion Bwee's 64-year-old safe­ty record re­mains in­tact," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on ar­rival back at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day, af­ter vis­it­ing El­liot and oth­er in­jured pas­sen­gers in Guyana on Sat­ur­day. "We thank God for his mer­cies that not a life was lost-not a fa­tal­i­ty in last Sat­ur­day's in­ci­dent," she added. The in­ci­dent of CAL 523 is now un­der probe by a team of ex­perts, in­clud­ing from the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, Boe­ing (man­u­fac­tur­ers of the air­craft), the US Na­tion­al Trans­port and Safe­ty Board as well as Guyanese, T&T and Suri­namese ex­perts.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar jet­ted to Guyana hours af­ter CAL 523 un­der­took what glob­al me­dia is deem­ing a mirac­u­lous land­ing at Ched­di Ja­gan Air­port around 1.32 am on Sat­ur­day. On­ly about 30 mi­nor in­juries-and no fa­tal­i­ties-were re­port­ed among the 154 pas­sen­gers. Min­is­ters Roodal Mooni­lal and Stephen Cadiz, who had been in Guyana for con­fer­ences last week, were the first T&T Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials on the scene of the ac­ci­dent. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived on Sat­ur­day evening and to­geth­er with oth­er min­is­ters went im­me­di­ate­ly to the crash site. Yes­ter­day, she vis­it­ed the flight crew, as well as El­liot and oth­er in­jured pas­sen­gers. She al­so met Guyana gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo, on the sit­u­a­tion be­fore re­turn­ing home with her team at 3.30 pm yes­ter­day.

The min­is­te­r­i­al team, who trav­elled home on CAL, ar­rived at Pi­ar­co in a solemn mood. Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan pro­vid­ed the ex­pla­na­tion, say­ing that see­ing the bro­ken CAL air­craft ly­ing on the Guyana ground had been "an emo­tion­al and deep ex­pe­ri­ence for us." He said: "See­ing it on pa­per is one thing, but see­ing one of T&T's own air­craft on the ground in re­al life was an­oth­er." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "When we got in­to Guyana on Sat­ur­day, we vis­it­ed the site where the air­craft was and it was a...stun­ning sight. "It was re­al­ly a heart-rend­ing sight to see this air­craft, you know, nose-dived in­to the sand-and bro­ken along the spin-I thought that was bad enough, but when we vis­it­ed in the light to­day (Sun­day), it was much more fear­some to look at," she added. "So it is in­deed mirac­u­lous what has hap­pened be­cause not a life was lost...Not a fa­tal­i­ty. "The pas­sen­gers who were in­jured and the crew; the pi­lot suf­fered some in­jury to his back. But the main in­jury was to the leg of Mr El­liot."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was told that the air­craft's cock­pit door had to be cut away with an axe to free pi­lot Fa­reed Dean.She said Dean was tak­en out of the wreck­age. But she said Dean was now walk­ing, though with some pain. "The cock­pit was so to­tal­ly squashed, it's a mir­a­cle they're alive," she added. Af­ter meet­ing Dean and his crew yes­ter­day, she said: "They are trau­ma­tised, but giv­en what we saw, I think they would have made their best ef­forts re­gard­less of what hap­pened and at­tempt­ed to have that air­craft be as safe as they could. "When I saw them, they want­ed to come home, but they can't right away as they have to be in­ter­viewed by the in­ves­ti­ga­tors," she said. "I saw a bit of a lift in their spir­its when we walked in to see them. We prayed with them and they were a bit more com­fort­ed when we left." The Prime Min­is­ter said she had sug­gest­ed that CAL fly a rel­a­tive of each flight crew mem­ber to Guyana to give them sup­port.

Say­ing she vis­it­ed El­liot at Guyana's hos­pi­tal, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "He was in very good spir­its. To­day (Sun­day) was his an­niver­sary which he'd come to Guyana to cel­e­brate. He made a very in­ter­est­ing com­ment when asked if he would fly on CAL again. "He said, 'well, of course, I al­ways fly CAL. I have to fly CAL be­cause I want to go back to New York,'" she added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so vis­it­ed a 20-year- old and a 69-year-old who were hos­pi­talised with mi­nor in­juries. Ad­mit­ting the in­ci­dent was the worst so far for CAL, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, said it served to re­mind of CAL's safe­ty record. "Not a life was lost, oth­er air­lines can­not say that," she added. "The air­craft re­mains vir­tu­al­ly in­tact in the con­di­tions at the scene as when it land­ed there." She said the plane would be dis­man­tled on­ly af­ter they were ad­vised by in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The re­turn of the crew and air­craft to T&T would de­pend on the length of the probe. The air­craft, which was leased in 2007, was in­sured, she added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "We don't know what hap­pened and we have no in­ten­tion of spec­u­lat­ing. This is a very se­ri­ous busi­ness...I can­not say it was pi­lot er­ror, run­way er­ror, air­craft mal­func­tion-those are mat­ters bet­ter han­dled by the ex­perts." She said she hoped the probe would be con­clud­ed in the fastest pos­si­ble time as it would be in T&T's in­ter­est to know the cause to take steps to pre­vent a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent. Con­firm­ing that there would be some im­pact on CAL, she said CAL's board was deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion to con­tain this. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was a lot of mis­in­for­ma­tion on the In­ter­net and blogs re­gard­ing a St Maarten crash and an­oth­er in the re­gion which did not in­volve CAL.

Funds for pas­sen­gers

CAL chair­man George Nicholas has said the air­line has pro­vid­ed funds of US$500 each for the 154 pas­sen­gers on the flight to pro­vide a lev­el of com­fort and as­sis­tance. He said T&T's con­sul in Guyana was as­sist­ing with the sit­u­a­tion. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said CAL had put a lot of sys­tems in place for pas­sen­ger sup­port, as­sis­tance and coun­selling. The crew is al­so re­ceiv­ing coun­selling. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Guyanese au­thor­i­ties did all they could in the re­moval of pas­sen­gers. She thanked the US for pro­vid­ing avi­a­tion help in the probe. She al­so said US ex­perts had vast ex­pe­ri­ence in such mat­ters.