The only services affected in any way were flights associated with Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, Antigua and New York. The airline continuously posted updated schedules on its Website in the immediate aftermath of the accident.
According to a statement from the airline, Caribbean Airlines BW523 en route from Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Georgetown, Guyana, was involved in an "incident" at Cheddi Jaggan International Airport at approximately 1:32am on July 30. There were 157 passengers and six crew members on board, all of whom were accounted for.
Airline officials did not go into specifics of the accident, but several news sources, including the US-based Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the Boeing 737 had rolled off the end of the tarmac and crashed through a fence. The fuselage broke into two pieces in front of the wings as the tip of the nose dug into the ground, and the plane came to rest short of a deep jungle ravine.
The flight originated from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and made a stop in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Preliminary reports indicated dozens of people required hospital care, with at least four suffering serious injuries. According to various early media reports from the scene, passengers recounted screams and the smell of fuel in the cabin before they rushed to slide down the emergency slides.
Airline officials explained that a team consisting of technical support staff and executives had been dispatched immediately to the accident site to assist passengers and to work with the local authorities in the emergency response and investigations.
"The Caribbean Airlines executive team and technical support staff are at the scene to offer full support to the injured in Georgetown. A relatives/customer assistance hotline has been established at our emergency centre in Piarco, and counselling is being provided to passengers and family members," a statement from the airline read.
It was also confirmed that the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority will be spearheading the investigation and will be assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority (TTCAA).
The WSJ reported that the Boeing 737-800 accident came after an encouraging six-month period, according to safety experts, marked by year-over-year improvement in the global rate of major accidents involving modern Western-built passenger aircraft. From the beginning of January to the end of June this year, there wasn't a single fatal accident involving such Western planes operating scheduled passenger service. During the same period, at least five airliners in this category were involved in significant, but non-fatal, runway accidents
In recent years, regulators and safety groups have focused particularly on preventing runway accidents in which poor pilot decision-making results in landing aircraft being unable to stop safely.
The latest crash highlights persistent problems and hazards posed by so-called runway excursions: accidents and serious incidents stemming from airliners careening off runways, often as a result of pilots landing too fast, touching down too far along the strip or failing to recognise the difficulty of stopping on wet, slushy or snow-packed surfaces.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that passengers like Geeta Ramsingh (41) of Philadelphia recalled how applause at the arrival had quickly "turned to screams."
"The plane sped up as if attempting to take off again. It is then that I smelled gas in the cabin and people started to shout and holler," she said. When the plane crumpled to a stop, Ramsingh said she had hopped onto the wing and then onto the dirt road outside the runway fence.
"A fellow who was trying to escape as well mistakenly jumped on my back and that is why my knees are bruised," she said. "So I am in pain, but very thankful to be alive."
According to the AP, nobody had yet showed up to rescue her, "but a taxi driver appeared from nowhere and charged me US $20 to take me to the terminal. I had to pay, but in times of emergencies, you don't charge people for a ride," she said, sitting on a chair in the arrival area surrounded by relatives. She was returning to her native country for only the second time in 30 years.
Another passenger, Adis Cambridge (42) of Guyana, said she had felt the thump of a hard landing, but had not thought much of it until seconds later. "I realised that everything was on top of me, people and bags. I was the second-to-last person to get off that plane in the dark," she said, flanked by her two young children who had come to the airport to meet her after a brief holiday in the U.S.
"I hit my head on the roof. It was so scary," she said, and described jumping from the wing to the dirt road below as crews with flashlights and beams from fire engines searched for passengers. I thought I would have died. I just started to cry," she said.
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