Cessna makes emergency landing; passengers unhurt
A small plane belonging to Tropic Air made an emergency landing in a cleared area on the south side of Belize City. Fortunately, none of the four people aboard were injured and despite being stuck in the mud, the aircraft may one day return to service.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Around three this afternoon, the Cessna 172, Victor Three Hotel Gulf Yankee had just taken off from the municipal airstrip. The pilot and three passengers were heading South, but five minutes after departure the pilot started experiencing problems with the aircraft.
The pilot, Graham Allen then decided to turn back to the Belize City municipal airstrip, but could not complete the two and a half minute flight.
Amado Badillo, Regional Manager, Tropic Air
“And he had to do an emergency landing on the southern coastline of Belize near the Customs of Port Authority Limited property.”
One of the first to rush to the scene was Ken Flowers, who was working in the area and saw the aircraft in distress.
Ken Flowers, Eyewitness
“When we see it di come down, I tell the bwai, well that crash this, mek we get there one time.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“And you ran to scene and then what?”
Ken Flowers
“Assist the pilot to call and give location where the plane went down.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“How were the passengers at that time?”
Ken Flowers
“They mi alright because you could see more or less nobody get hurt and they noh that shook up or anything.”
When News Five arrived on the scene, Tropic Air Employees were escorting the three passengers, one woman and two men, from the crash site. Graham, who has been flying for eight years, received only praise from his passengers.
Dayal Jagtiani, Passenger
“The engine failed right and the pilot do good job and tried to save we. … He tell we that how he had to do emergency landing and then suddenly he landed, but lucky we save.”
Ramesh Sachdev, Passenger
“The pilot has done a very good job. He has saved our lives, very good, that’s very nice. … We were going to Dangriga and we had to come back like five o’clock. We had to meet some friends and it happened like that.”
Civil Aviation Authorities were also on hand conducting their investigations, but at this time could not speculate on the cause of the accident.
Francis Lizama, Flight Ops Inspector, Civil Aviation Dept
“What we do here is to take measurements of the area, take all the documents from the airplane, and we actually sterilised the aircraft and secure it until the following day so that we can do further investigations to the aircraft.”
“We also met with the passengers today, we got their telephone numbers and of course they will be assisting us in our investigation this week or for the next week in terms of getting all the information from them, anything extra on the flight that can help us.”
Lizama says the investigation should not take more than a week to complete.
