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Forced to make an emergency landing, the pilot and passengers managed to survive without injury. (Photo Courtesy: Channel 7 News)
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Four airline passengers travelling to the Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA) on Sunday morning got more than they bargained for when their Tropic Air plane had to make an emergency landing in the Caribbean Sea.
According to Tropic Air’s President, Johnny Grief, pilot skill and rapid response prevented what could have been a disaster, one that investigators are still working on in an effort to determine the cause. “Well this was a practically new engine in this airplane. This engine was less than six months from factory. New, not overhauled, completely new and I wouldn’t want to speculate. At this time authorities are still investigating the cause and the incident was catastrophically, meaning that the engine just suddenly stopped,” ended Grief.
At the time of the emergency landing, the pilot who was 33-year-old Roy Bradley noticed something was wrong and around 9:40 a.m., just minutes after taking off from the Municipal Airstrip, the Tropic Air Cessna Caravan made an emergency landing 20 feet off the coast of Belizean Beach some two miles close to the old dumpsite. The plane’s entire left wing was broken off and its right wing, tail, and top were damaged. According to Tropic Air, the Cessna 208 plane was totaled and as Greif explained, “Is of a constructive total loss and will not be repaired.” Passengers were ferried out of the partially submerged plane and thankfully no one was seriously hurt. The four American nationals traveling en route to the PGIA were Jonathon Brady, Lindsay Brady, David Yorke and Gay Yorke, who were all from Texas. And whilst they were shaken, one male passenger sustained cuts to the head but fortunately no fatalities occurred. The caravan in question has been in operation since 1996 and Greif told The Sun that a routine check up of the planes is carried out daily.
Tropic Air now hosts seven caravans and whilst it is not a common occurrence, the company urges customers to continue flying with them, “Well, we’d like to thank them for their patronage and let them know that airplanes are built by humans and sometimes things go wrong and we would appreciate if they would stick by us,” Greif ended. The investigation is now in the hands of the Civil Aviation Authority. The last time Tropic Air made an emergency landing was in July 2007 when a small Cessna landed in the Port of Belize/Customs area but no fatalities were reported.
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