Saturday, July 25th, 2015
On Monday, July 13th, Tropic Air’s Cessna 182 was removed from its crash landing site within the Lighthouse Reef Atoll.
The vessel, which was en route to Roatan, Honduras experienced malfunctions which caused it to crash approximately one mile south of Half Moon Caye on Tuesday, June 2nd. Since then, the aircraft had been sitting in the shallow area awaiting proper weather conditions for its extraction to be carried out.
According to Chief Operations Officer at the Belize Department of Civil Aviation (BDCA), Nigel Carter, several inspections were made at the crash site prior to removing the vessel.
Due to inclement weather in the past month, the extraction mission was at a standstill.
It was not until Monday, July 13th that Tropic Air hired Island Construction Limited to retrieve the vessel from the water and transport it to the Philip Goldson International Airport.
“Now that the airplane has been taken out of the water, we are going to conduct a thorough inspection. We are bringing in the manufacturers of the Cessna 182 to check every single aspect of the aircraft and identify what went wrong and caused malfunction. Once we have that report, we will be able to come up with a conclusion to our investigation,” said Carter. BDCA are not disclosing the angle of investigation but have indicated that all aspects of the crash will be scrutinized. “We carry out these investigation to assure all airway travelers safety and dependability,” said Carter.
In addition, the Department of Environment will also be inspecting the crash site to determine damages cause by the aircraft.
Tropic Air was contacted for a statement on the next step of investigation, but had not responded as of press time.
Source: http://www.sanpedrosun.com
Lindsay Garbutt, Director of Civil Aviation
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The Department of Civil Aviation is proceeding with an official probe into a plane crash on June 2nd involving a Tropic Air flight en route to the Bay Islands of Honduras.
The investigation is set to continue as soon as the submerged aircraft is removed from the crash site.
To do so requires a joint effort with the Department of the Environment, as well as a salvage company.
On Tuesday evening, a Cessna 182 Skylane aircraft, piloted by Denfield Borland, flew out of the Phillip Goldson International Airport en route to Roatan when it began experiencing mechanical problems mid-flight.
While Borland was able to relay that information to air traffic control at the P.G.I.A., he was unable to avoid an emergency landing.
The aircraft, along with its pilot and two passengers, Honduran national Eddie Bodden and American national Arthur Rogers, dove into the Caribbean Sea near Lighthouse Reef.
All three survivors escaped unharmed and were later rescued by a search party comprised of coast guard assets and Audubon Society park rangers sitting atop the aircraft.
This afternoon, News Five sat down with Director of Civil Aviation, Lindsay Garbutt, who gave us more information on the inquiry.
Lindsay Garbutt, Director of Civil Aviation: “We are going through an extremely thorough investigation. This accident took place, as you know, at Lighthouse Reef, Half Moon Caye, several, many, many miles from Belize. The airplane is in the water so there is a process that we are looking at now how we salvage this airplane so we can begin that part of our investigation.”
Isani Cayetano: “What does that entail in terms of either deploying your resources into the area to retrieve the aircraft from the water? What all does that take logistically or in terms of manpower or what have you?”
Lindsay Garbutt: “Well first of all we’re working with the Department of the Environment to make sure and with a salvage company to make sure that the removal causes as little or no damage as possible to the environment. Once that is done the plane is brought to Belize City and the department then goes through a careful investigation. We are in contact with the manufacturers and whatever it is that we need to do in terms of the engine so we can get a thorough knowledge of exactly what occurred.”
Isani Cayetano: “Would this be one of those cases where black box data is required to fully understand what transpired with the actual mechanical failure or what have you?”
Lindsay Garbutt: “One of the reasons I said we are working with the manufacturers is that we are going to go through a very thorough process, whatever it is that they advise that is necessary that we can get an understanding of what the causes were we are going to do.”
Story and photos: http://edition.channel5belize.com
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