On July 30, 2011 at approximately 1.32 am local time Caribbean Airlines Flt 523 from JFK in New York with a scheduled stop in Port of Spain Trinidad overshot the runway at Cheddie Jagan International Airport (CJIA). The aircraft 9Y-PBM a Boeing 737-800 with 157 passengers and 6 crew members ploughed through a perimeter fence travelled down an embankment and came to rest straddling the airport perimeter dirt road and broke apart.
The 163 passengers and crew were able to disembark the aircraft using the emergency chutes and several were taken to the hospital with various non-life threatening injuries.
Caribbean Airlines the descendant of British West Indian Airways (BWIA) with a total of approximately 70 years of service is one of a handful of airlines in the world without a fatality. This unblemished record still stands in spite of the Saturday July 30, 2001 incident.
The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority will be spearheading the investigation and will be assisted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the U.S. and the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA). The accident prompted the government to start proceedings for the removal of hundred of squatters from the airport surroundings.
According to Mr. Ramesh Ghir the airport CEO, the aircraft came dangerously close to the squatters homes and that their presence prevents the government from being able to expand the airport and runway. There is an estimated 1000 persons in 300 homes and small shops just north of the runway, many of whom have been there more than a decade.
