Civil Aviation Investigates Tropic Air Crash

At around two thirty Thursday afternoon a Tropic Air Cessna Grand Caravan, inbound from San Pedro, crash landed at the Municipal Airstrip in Belize City and then ran off the runway into the bordering sea. There were five passengers on but all escaped unharmed. Directors of Tropic Air immediately blamed the slick conditions of the runway, which they claim is too narrow and too short. But there have also been persistent reports of engine failure as the cause of the accident because it couldn’t reduce velocity. A police report issued today says that (Quote) “on arrival at Municipal Airstrip about two-fifteen p.m. the plane began experiencing engine problems and was unable to decelerate.  Attempts were made to shut off the plane engine, however, the momentum caused the plane to overrun the airstrip and ended up in the sea.”  (Unquote)  The Department of Civil Aviation is in charge of the investigation at this point, but they are not offering any concrete information, saying only that the aircraft could not come to a stop within the length of the runway. Today C.E.O. in the Department Nigel Carter told News Five that while any accident is regrettable, the safety record in Belize remains stellar.

Nigel Carter, CEO, Department of Civil Aviation

Nigel Carter

“We know that incidents and accidents happen from time to time. This year alone Belize is projected to have three hundred thousand flight operations. We believe that of the three hundred thousand flight operations if we do have an accident it is definitely regrettable, but our safety record remains up there with any first world country.”

Reporter

“We know that tropic air has grown exponentially, faster than any other airline in Belize. Have they grown too fast to keep up with a proper regimen of maintenance, safety and training?”

Nigel Carter

“Well we know that Tropic Air has grown. They’ve expanded their routes and so forth, but we do regulate that growth. With reference to the introduction of any new aircraft to the fleet or any new route, we conduct extensive reviews and testing of the changes that are made to the system. So we can say that we have done our due diligence to ensure that the company has grown and been compliant with standards.”

Carter was unable to provide any clarification of recent reports of other accidents involving Tropic Air planes, since he says the current legislation indicates that any information on accidents must be released by the Minister in charge of Civil Aviation.