The aircraft that allegedly caused damage to a home in Chaguaramas due to alleged low flying in the area on Thursday evening has been identified as one of the AugustaWestland AW139s belonging to the TT Air Guard (TTAG).
This was yesterday confirmed to the Sunday Guardian by officials of the T&T Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA).
Yesterday morning (Saturday), at about 9.48 am, a team of TTCAA officials were at the TTAG's hangar at Piarco reviewing cockpit voice recordings onboard the helicopter 9Y-AG314, as part of its ongoing investigations.
It was reported that three homes in the area suffered some sort of damage, including the home of Marsha Maynard.
Parts of Maynard's home came crumbling down when the helicopter hovered close to her home, ripping off galvanised and causing six rows of clay blocks to collapse. At surrounding homes, electric gates were ripped off their hinges.
An official at Air Traffic Control (ATC), who wished not to be identified, told the Sunday Guardian yesterday that the helicopter was in the area taking aerial photographs. The source said that officials onboard the helicopter had called into the ATC to confirm that they were operating in the Chaguaramas area flying at allegedly 500 feet.
Another aviation official, who also wished anonymity, explained that the downwash created by that big a helicopter at low level would cause extensive damage to loose objects.
"Plus, if you are hovering you need more power, hence the greater the downwash. An airplane has wings that create lift so the prop wash or engine thrust is behind the aircraft. The rotor blades create the lift in a helicopter so the associated downwash is below the helicopter," the aviation source said.
An official from the TTCAA told the Sunday Guardian that once an aircraft was involved in an incident, an investigation was launched and the TTCAA would move to ground the aircraft so that the necessary evidence could be extracted.
When contacted for comment yesterday, T&T Defence Force (TTDF) Civil Military Affairs Officer, Major Al Alexander, confirmed that officials of the TTCAA were reviewing voice recordings.
"This is being done to determine what time they were there and how low our aircraft was. However, I will maintain that during that time window, we may not have been the only aircraft in the area, so I think that Civil Aviation is exploring all the possible aircrafts that would have been in the area," Alexander said.
He, however, added that the TTAG's helicopter was not grounded and would continue operations and carrying out exercises as normal.
Not wanting to admit fault with respect to the damage that occurred in the Chaguaramas area, Alexander said that he along with engineers of the TTDF visited Maynard and her husband.
"We have done an assessment there and we have been given the okay by the Chief of Defence Staff to assist where we can, based on what we finalise. We are not admitting fault and would not wait on the outcome to assist but there is a family in need and we will do what we can do to assist in the meantime. This is a family that live about a mile and a half from the defence headquarters," Alexander said.
