Firemen accused of looting crashed plane
When he finally got his luggage back late in the afternoon, after surviving a crash landing and spending the next 14 hours without his asthma medication, Invor Bedessee discovered his illstarred flight home to Canada from Guyana had one last nasty surprise left.
His cellphone, power cords and keys had all been stolen from his carry-on luggage — as well as more than $1,000 in American cash.
Bedessee, a 48-year-old businessman from Pickering, Ont., believes his possessions were taken by firefighters called to attend to Fly Jamaica Flight OJ256, which careened past the end of the runway and stopped just short of a steep embankment at a Guyanese airport around 2:30 a.m. Friday. A mechanical issue had compelled the pilot to make an emergency landing. Six people were injured.
Police in Guyana said this week that a dozen firefighters were arrested on Friday for allegedly stealing from some of the 120 passengers, as well as from the pilot and crew members.
While the two friends with whom he travelled to Guyana still haven’t been able to return home, Bedessee managed to catch a flight to Toronto via Trinidad on Saturday. Wracked with nerves, he said in an interview that he hasn’t gotten much sleep and has been shaking persistently.
“Material things, I don’t really care (about). Those things can be replaced,” Bedessee said.
“But my mental health is not the best right now.”
Bedessee was one of 82 Canadians aboard the aircraft when it left Cheddi Jagan International Airport near Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, 40 minutes after its scheduled departure time. Crew members had struggled for a while before takeoff to close the front door, and 10 minutes after takeoff, the pilot announced that a hydraulic malfunction was forcing him to circle back to the airport.
As the plane approached ground level, the landing gear deployed properly and the touchdown was comfortable, Bedessee recalled.
But it soon became evident that the brakes weren’t slowing the plane. Bedessee said the aircraft blew down the runway over spikes that popped a couple tires. Part of the landing gear tore off; so did the right wing.
The plane swerved to the right, smashed through a chain-link fence and stopped in a pile of sand three metres from the edge of a ravine. The drop-off from there was nine to 12 metres.
“Only with the light of dawn were we aware of how close we were to that ravine and how close we came to be a statistic of airline tragedies,” another passenger, Cyril Bryan of Toronto, said in an email. “We thank the universe for saving us to live another day.”
Ordered to evacuate by inflatable slide, Bedessee left his knapsack and another bag at his seat in business class. He said the plane began to smoke five to 10 minutes after he got outside. As firefighters were summoned, he gave his contact information to the flight crew, went to a hotel to eat and shower and returned around 1 p.m.
It took until 5 p.m. for a customs agent to retrieve his luggage, at which point Bedessee, rifling through the knapsack to find his inhaler, noticed that his cash, keys, chargers and iPhone were all missing.
Guyana Police Force Assistant Commissioner Marlon Chapman said officers detained 12 firefighters on Friday after finding in their possession phones, cash, jewelry and other items that appeared to belong to passengers and crew. Chapman wouldn’t say if police plan to lay charges, but noted that there are no other suspects.
The Guyana Fire Service said its chief, Marlon Gentle, was not available for comment.
When asked what action, if any, Global Affairs Canada plans to take in response to reports of theft, a department spokesperson said in an email that “Canadian consular officials are in contact with local authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance to Canadian citizens if needed.”
Bedessee, meanwhile, said he and a group of fellow passengers are considering a class-action lawsuit against Fly Jamaica. He’s also still waiting for his travel partners to be able to fly out of Guyana. He said one is a man in his 70s who had his passport and phone stolen.