Pilot’s body recovered, flown to city

Eteringbang plane crash

The body of Captain Randy Liverpool, who was killed in a plane crash late Thursday, has been recovered from the wreckage and brought to the city.
Liverpool lost his life when the aircraft he was piloting exploded after crash-landing at the Eteringbang Airstrip in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) sometime around 17:45h. He was the lone occupant of the Cessna 206 aircraft bearing registration number 8R-GHB at the time of the crash.
In a statement on Friday, the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said the man’s body arrived at the Eugene F Correia International Airport sometime around 13:45h, where family members and colleagues were gathered to pay tribute and lend moral support.
Meanwhile, Aviation Authority inspectors along with an investigator from the Guyana Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Unit have been dispatched to the crash site to begin their investigation.
While it is still unclear what transpired, acting GCAA Director Chitranie Hiralall told Guyana Times when asked that the Air Traffic Control tower did not receive any distress call from the pilot. In fact, she noted that they got a report prior to landing – indicating that the aircraft was preparing to land – and at that time, there were no issues.
The death of Captain Liverpool has sent shockwaves throughout the civil aviation fraternity, including the GCAA. Captain Liverpool worked with the GCAA as an Air Traffic Controller before pursuing his dream of becoming a pilot.
At the time of the accident, he was flying an aircraft owned by Domestic Airways Inc (DAI). The company’s Director, Captain Orlando Charles, described Liverpool as “a very experienced pilot with over 3000 hours of flying in the hinterland regions”.
Liverpool is married and recently got his first child, who is just three-months-old now.
The news of the accident and the pilot’s death comes at a time when the aviation industry is still reeling from a plane crash on the West Bank of Demerara earlier this week.
Reports are that the Cessna aircraft had run out of fuel and sometime around 19:00h on Monday, crashed about one mile from the Boeraserie Water Conservancy at Canal Number Two, West Bank Demerara, Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).
The aircraft, which is the Guyana Adventist Medical Aviation Services (GAMAS) medevac plane, had two occupants at the time – the pilot, Captain Lincoln Gomez, who suffered a broken jaw and a police officer, Michael Grimond, who has a broken leg.
They were transporting the body of dead missionary, Christopher Matthews, from Arawai to the Eugene F Correia International Airport (Ogle airport). The Director of the Kaikan Bible School in Guyana had reportedly fallen off a mountain and died on Monday morning.