Jeevan Robinson
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Following from the Caribbean Airlines (CAL) plane crash in Guyana over the weekend, former CEO of the airline, Captain Ian Brunton, has expressed his full faith that CAL would not have breached any airline safety standards.
Captain Brunton was speaking to the Trinidad Express after the Caribbean Airlines, Boeing 737 crash that broke in two, after bad weather caused the aircraft to veer off the runway at Guyana's Cheddi Jagan International Airport.The flight, BW523 was en route from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to Guyana when it crash landed at 1:32 AM local time. It had originally taken off from New York's JFK Airport.
Brunton's comments were measured, in light of his former association with CAL, and also the current investigation underway into the crash. He was keen to stress though that he thought everyone should wait for the official statement of what caused the crash rather than to negatively speculate over CAL's operational practices. Several aviation authorities will conduct the investigation into the crash. Most notable will be the United States based National Transportation Safety Board, the Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago aviation authorities, the manufacturers of the Boeing 737 and CAL themselves.
Brunton explained that all those parties would thoroughly investigate everything surrounding the accident and everything that led up to it.' I am very confident we should wait for the investigation to conclude," he told the media, adding that the speculation could be very damaging.
He said, "I know the standards of safety at CAL are very high; I mean, it is a business, but the standards of safety I am very comfortable with. I have been so intimate with it over so many years; I'd find it difficult to believe they would be throwing all that history of 70 years of safety away to push the pilots to the limit. I'll quite be surprised but I don't know."
When pressed if there can be any possible negative fall out for CAL as a result of the crash, his response was very upbeat, stating, "I think this could be a positive for us. We were very fortunate there was no loss of life because that airplane could have burnt so easily, and it's fire that kills people in this sort of incident...but it says a lot for the crew and the airplane that they were able to ensure there was no fire."
The investigation into the crash should be revealing details soon, it is hoped, seeing that the digital flight recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were not damaged in the crash.
Meanwhile CAL's Chairman, George Nicholas, described as a miracle the fact that there were no fatalities from the crash.
Photo Credit to Brisbane Times
