Trinidad: Helicopter crash lands during search for prison escapees

(Trinidad Guardian) The Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (NHSL) is now in­ves­ti­gat­ing what caused a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar he­li­copter that was part of a joint law en­force­ment search for eight pris­on­ers to crash short­ly af­ter one yes­ter­day.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, NHSL con­firmed the in­ci­dent at Windy Hill, Arou­ca, which all three oc­cu­pants of the air­craft luck­i­ly es­caped un­hurt. The ac­ci­dent is al­so en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty, Guardian Me­dia was told.

The pi­lot, pris­ons of­fi­cer and po­lice of­fi­cer on board were all shak­en “but in one piece,” Prison Com­mis­sion­er Ger­ard Wil­son, who ar­rived min­utes af­ter the crash, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia.

“Well, I called him, he told me they were do­ing sur­veil­lance and he doesn’t know if the he­li­copter was too low, but it start­ed to spin, it got a tail­spin and he said that he felt when it hit the ground that was it for him,” Wil­son said.

The man­gled wreck­age of the NHSL he­li­copter stood in a bar­ren clear­ing mere feet away from a small riv­er about a quar­ter mile off the Ari­ma Old Road in the Windy Hill, Arou­ca area af­ter the pi­lot man­aged to land it safe­ly enough to avoid in­juries to him­self and his pas­sen­gers.

The ro­tor blades were bent and limp and sev­er­al pieces of the blades were strewn around the crash site, which was heav­i­ly guard­ed by sol­diers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment and po­lice of­fi­cers.

The man­hunt for the eight pris­on­ers, all con­sid­ered armed and dan­ger­ous, had be­gun short­ly af­ter sev­en yes­ter­day, af­ter the men were dis­cov­ered miss­ing from their cell in the up­per South wing of the in­sti­tu­tion.

A joint team of po­lice, pris­ons and army of­fi­cers lat­er start­ed search­ing the Bon Air and Windy Hill ar­eas for sev­er­al hours and set up strate­gic road­blocks as they re­ceived re­port­ed sight­ings of the men. Po­lice re­cov­ered a pair of boots and an or­ange vest near a riv­er close to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in the Bon Air area.

The names of the es­caped men were Olatun­ji Den­bow, Brent John­son, Mikhale Mo­hammed, Joshua Janet, Ker­ry Valenti­no, Stef­fon Austin, Michael Find­ley – all on re­mand for mur­der – and At­i­ba Sealey, who was in­car­cer­at­ed on an ag­gra­vat­ed rob­bery charge.

Wil­son gave de­tails of how the es­cape of the men went down af­ter vis­it­ing Cell 6 in the up­per south wing of the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Yard.

“When I looked in I asked about the hole, they showed me to the top left-hand cor­ner there was a hole, not more than 12 inch­es in di­am­e­ter, prob­a­bly a square. They took out a brick and cut two bars and with­out get­ting the facts and the pre­lim­i­nary re­port, I would as­sume a hack­saw blade was used,” Wil­son said.

Wil­son said once the men went through that open­ing they would have jumped over the first perime­ter fence and then the Gold­en Grove prison fence, which he said was “not that high” and then on­to Wa­ter­loo Road on the east­ern side of the prison com­pound.

Fol­low­ing the lat­est jail­break, Wil­son told Guardian Me­dia that they were work­ing fever­ish­ly with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­in­force se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at Re­mand Yard.

“We were start­ing to move in­mates out in or­der to the north­ern wing and put toi­lets in cells. So I don’t know if they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty be­cause they felt that they were be­ing moved even­tu­al­ly, to make their es­cape from the in­sti­tu­tion.”

He said he had been in con­tact with Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young, who was out of the coun­try, about the es­cape and al­so ap­prised him about the he­li­copter in­volved in the crash.

Law en­force­ment of­fi­cers did not re­lent in their search for the es­capees, fi­nal­ly catch­ing up with at least five of the men by last evening.