Caribbean Civil Aviation team to probe crash

DAY 4

Wednesday, November 22

Investigators from the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority (ECCAA) arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines to begin a probe into the disappearance of the SVG Air Aero Commander 500S plane in which the two occupants are believed dead.

Four days of searching have failed to turn up the plane or the occupants.

Searching was not just being conducted by the official search and rescue teams but also by the mother of the lone passenger, Supervisor of American Eagle in Canouan, Rasheed Ibrahim, and wife of pilot Dominic Gonsalves.{{more}}

One relative of Gonsalves said that although nothing new had been found they had received some good tips that may be leading them closer to finding other parts of the aircraft and even the bodies of the two missing men.

Relatives of Ibrahim said until they see a body, they are not writing him off and therefore planning for his January 6 wedding continues as normal.

Officers from the Venezuelan military which arrived yesterday continued operation today but told SEARCHLIGHT that they are accustomed to using satellite tracking in search and rescue. They’ve also admitted that their expertise was mainly in land-based search and rescue.

Meanwhile at a press conference held at Democrat House, Opposition Leader, Arhnim Eustace said that he was anxiously awaiting the results of the investigations so that he could make sense of the “time gap”, which he said he is finding difficulty to comprehend.

He also confirmed to SEARCHLIGHT that Nisha Branker (formerly DeSilva) mother of Rasheed Ibrahim who raised the alarm Sunday night, did ask him for the Prime Minister’s telephone number so she could get some action but he did not have his after hour numbers.

“It is true that I should have the Prime Minister’s numbers as the Leader of the Opposition but I don’t want to make anything of it. The Prime Minister gave me the numbers Tuesday,” Eustace said.