Georgetown, GINA, September 19, 2013 – As initially suspected and now substantiated, the cause of the Caribbean Airlines Flight Number 523 accident on June 30, 2011 has been found to be pilot error.
The Flight 523 Final Report on the Caribbean Airlines crash was submitted to government and concluded the following, according to Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira. “The cause of the accident was the aircraft touching down far beyond the touchdown zone due to the captain maintaining excess power during the flare and not using the airplane’s full deceleration capacity, resulting in the aircraft over running the pavement and fracturing the fuselage.”
The earlier contention of “pilot error” by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCCA) was supported by the findings of the crash report, Teixeira noted during a post-Cabinet media briefing at Office of the President today. She was standing in for Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon.
Several organisations participated in the accident’s investigation including the National Transportation and Safety Board of America, the Caribbean Aviation Safety and Security Oversight (CASSOS), Caribbean Airlines, Trinidad and Tobago’s Civil Aviation Authority and the Boeing Aircraft Company.
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft crash landed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at 01:32hrs on July 30, 2011. The aircraft, which overshot the runway, stopped short of a ravine, its nose cone segment breaking off. In what was deemed “a miracle landing,” all 163 people aboard including six crew members survived. Most of those injuries occurred when passengers attempted to flee the aircraft which broke in two after coming to a halt several hundred meters off of the main runway apron.
Several passengers filed lawsuits against the airline for compensation. The accident was the first of its kind involving a major airline operating in Guyana at the CJIA.
