Medivac plane crash-lands on West Bank Demerara

-pilot, passenger said to be safe

Photo of the plane from GAMAS Aviation's Facebook Page
Photo of the plane from GAMAS Aviation’s Facebook Page

A Guyana Adventist Medical Aviation Services plane with two persons and a dead body onboard this evening crash-landed in the wetlands area behind Nismes on the West Bank of Demerara and a rescue effort is currently underway.

Update: Pilot, cop rescued after Medivac plane crash lands

Head of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority Egbert Field confirmed the crash to the Stabroek News. 

Fields, who is currently in the United States, said that his Deputy called him this evening to update him on the crash.

He said that the plane went down in a desolate area behind the Canal Number 2 and Nismes villages, about 13 miles from the Timehri airport. 

The aircraft, a single engine Cessna with registration number N8704T,was returning from a medical mission in the North West and was headed to the Eugene F Correia International Airport from where it had earlier this afternoon departed for the mission.

Authorities were alerted to the crash when distress calls were made by the pilot before the aircraft went down. 

An overflight search party was immediately dispatched but returned unsuccessfully  to Ogle after about an hour. A call was subsequently received from the plane informing that the pilot and a policeman  were alive but that it “seems someone had broken bones”,  one rescuer said. 

The coordinates of the location were given and a Guyana Defence Force chopper is currently preparing for the rescue. 

Residents at Nismes told this newspaper that around 8 pm they saw distress flares but the area it came from is flooded and would require a boat to get there.