Search for missing aircraft still futile

It was another futile day for those searching in the Cuyuni area for the US-registered aircraft that went missing last Saturday with three foreigners on board.

Head of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Zulfikar Mohamed last evening told Stabroek News that the two aircraft with special sensor equipment belonging to Dynamic Aviation that owns the missing aircraft and a helicopter were out searching but found nothing.

On Tuesday Minister of Public Works & Communica-tion Robeson Benn had stated that the search for the craft will from yesterday be done mainly on the ground. Members of the ground team also found nothing of interest as hope for the survival of the three persons on board grow dim.

Benn on Tuesday had pointed out that for the first time locally there were some eight aircraft involved in a search and rescue operation on the first day. He said on the second day seven aircraft were involved while yesterday there were five.
The Beech King Air N87V was last heard from at around 3.06 pm on Saturday, and a full-scale search and rescue mission coordinated by the GCAA Rescue Coordination Centre was launched after the plane’s disappearance, with Senior Air Traffic Control Officer Roy Sookhoo as the search and rescue coordinator.

The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Air Corps and Special Forces led the search from the first day but one of the helicopters has since malfunctioned. And the two British Royal Air Force helicopters that were on the search the first and second day have since left to continue their work in the training of local army personnel.

The GCAA had reported that no Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) signal, no updated sport tracker report, no verbal communication, including radio communication with Air Traffic Control and no satellite communication report had been received since the aircraft was declared missing.

Additionally, no indication of a crash, smoke, or remnants of a crash fire had been observed.
Americans James Wesley Barker, 28, and Chris Paris, 23, the Captain and First Officer, respectively, were on board the plane along with Canadian Patrick Murphy, a geophysics technician, when it disappeared. The aircraft was chartered from Dynamic Aviation Inc by Terraquest Ltd to conduct geophysical surveys on behalf of Prometheus Resources (Guyana) Inc, a subsidiary of the Toronto-based U3O8 Corporation.