Commercial plane crashes in Guyana; no deaths

Lets see, fly one of these type of airlines and it seems that if you make it there and dont either tear up an airplane or crash and die its a good day. Ride an American airline not one of these out back ones and feel safer.

Not so sure Boyd an AA overshot Runway 12 in Kingston, Jamaica in Dec 2009. It was a brand new 737. Sometimes you just never know the factors that lead to these accidents

@Boyd: Quote for above article, "only one of the few serious incidents involving the Trinidad-based airline". I think your statement is very ill informed. I used to fly BeeWee to Tinidad often ten years or so ago and it was a great airline. Only reson we stopped was because they didn't have e-tickets then. Can't recall a single rough landing. Very nice up to date 738's. Way nicer than anything I've been on with AA since.

@Boyd: 'fly one of these type of airlines and it seems that if you make it there and dont either tear up an airplane or crash and die its a good day." If you have no idea or have not flown on this airline, you should not be so quick to make such a stupid comment. If you did know the airline you would know that safety is always one of their priorities.

I have personally been on one of their flights within the past year...they're quite nice actually. People and plane. Not a bad outfit. but thats just me.

Having flown with the former BWIA & now CAL for the past 37 years,I will continue to support this airline.Kudos must be given to the pilots for avoiding fatalities.Additionally,the cabin crew should be highly commended for their performance under terrifying circumstances.It will be truly interesting to find out the cause of this incident.However,CAL remains the mainstay of Caribbean travel-Keep those heads up!

I believe the former BWIA (now Caribbean) has never had a fatal incident. I've been on several of their L-1011s, 707's and DC9-50s back in the day and the only hassle i had was sticky outflo valves on descent into JFK which really did a number on my ears. Check worldaerodata.com and the comments for GEO state during hvy rain, there is ponding on the rwy. W/that crowd onbrd and the speed likely required to be carried for landing, guessing a late touchdown&hydroplaning on a rwy not much longer than whats at LGA!

Boyd Butler - what a knob.

@Boyd Butler, feel safer you says? AA sure does not make me feel safe, there's the Bell Harbor, New York Crash. And as mentioned before an AA 737 broke up on landing in KIN. How about Southwest with their in-flight sun roof? Who can forget the US Airways in the Hudson River? Remember the Colgan Air Flight that went down in buffalo? I can go on and on. The airline named in the article above has operated for 59+ years, and this is the first major accident in their history. Your ill informed comment makes your seem like a typical All American Know It All With Your Head Buried Deep In The Sand. Don't misrepresent the rest of us, if you don't know what you're talking about, its best to say nothing at all. There's a much bigger world out there beyond our borders.

Call a "spade" a Spade and Boyd Butler a "JackAss" and be done with it.

Hydroplaning would make sense. Even at minimum speed (VREF), it's still possible to hydroplane and overshoot the runway.
To Boyd Butler, I think you need to get your facts straight before taking a shot at foreign airlines. Remember the Southwest Airlines 737 that overshot the runway at Chicago Midway? How about the countless other incidents like Aloha Airlines 243 where a major section of the fuselage was ripped away? The one thing that is beyond anyone's control is the weather. Keep that in mind.

Boyd your statement was reactionary and off the hip. BWIA/CAL Pilot ratings are among highest in industry and the 70 year safety record does not mean 7 pilots each with 10 years good landings!! Ask questions first, dont just run to wikipedia and then come comment.

@ kwamereid what the hell are you talking about when throwing the U.S. Airways landing in the Hudson along with the AA accidents in NY and KIN, the Colgan accident in BUF and the Southwest in-flight sunroof. The feat that Capt. Sully and his crew pulled of has been hailed as a masterpiece of airmanship. You should read your entries before sending them.

@chalet, In no way am I condemning anyone involved in incidents here in the US or outside. However I'm speaking in terms of the bigger picture here: Accidents do happen. This was primarily to point out to Mr. BoydButler that perhaps its not such a great thing quickly to condemn an entity that he knows nothing about, especially when we still a few dings in our system here at home. Like I said, accidents do happen and as professionals within the Airline Industry, its our responsibilities to mitigate the possibilities of such accidents. Capt. Sully exemplified such professionalism on the Hudson, and I think every Pilot at all levels should strive to be like him. Chalet, I encourage you to go ahead and read my post one more time but with an open mind. Try to put aside any preconceived notions you may have and you may grasp where I'm coming from.

It's unfortunate that human nature being what it is, the Boyd Butlers of the world come out of the woodwork whenever there's an accident/incident. I suppose he is also one of these aviation experts that got his qualifications to pontificate using the old Holiday Inn Express advertisement method.
Even more unfortunatly, these types of individuals are also allowed to breed.

Let's face it.....
It was an accident......not to mention the fact that there were no fatalities!! Kudos to the entire crew. Live to fly another day.

If you all look at the photos of the crashed plane, you will see that the flaps are not extended & the flight spoilers seem to have malfunctioned.
When you are coming into a landing you do pre-landing checks, which include brakes, undercarriage, & flaps + other things!

I feel sure the flaps were set.........possible Thrust Reverse malfunction....maybe? Hydroplaning a possible condition? Flight Data, Cockpit Voice Recorder may lend more insight. We shall see.

Too soon to know the details but frankly speaking eating up the entire length of the runway and resting way past the threshold makes you wonder. In practically 99% of this kind of accidents, fatal or otherwise the aircraft touched down way beyond the marks and was directly attributable to pilot error i.e. AA 737-800 in Kingston, Air France 340 in Toronto, SW 737 in Midway, Iberia 343 in Quito, Ecuador (UIO), and hundreds more so no Kudos to the flight crew for now at least.

The fact that the touchdown is unknown at this time, and the fact that you may not have ever experienced Hyfroplaning in an aircraft or for that matter a vehicle....the crew may be your 1 percent that landed in the touchdown zone on ref...don't contribute an assumption without knowing the facts of the landing. It very well could be a mechanical problem....??

Contrail727 hydroplanning is almost a science by itself but in simple terms if the runway was wet (and all indications are that it was) and from experience over the recent past the tower operator should have told the pilot about the braking action in taht particular instance (poor, bad or acceptable) and then the pilot should have made the final decision, OK?. Now if you see the pictures taken of the A/C from various angles and views, you will notice that there are no braking marks (pedals/emergency) anywhere in the last say 600/700 ft. of active runway, no marks on the short over-run area and none on the bushy/weed area; perhaps this says that either the brakes failed and/or perhaps hydroplanning was a factor.

Chalet.......from my experience.....if hydroplaning was an issue.....the anti-skid would be doing it's job of not letting the brakes lock up, hence no skid marks. Also, unless the tower had the braking action checked prior to the arrival of the plane..

There would be no reason to pass the info to the crew. Runway braking action is not provided in rainstorms.. Just snow or ice covered conditions when tested.

@ COntrail727 what about emergy braking even if it meant burning rubber and overheating the landing gear, this has been done in countless ocassions saving the day. We will se what the report says.

While they may have a good safety record, they did have a couple of similar scenarios, ie the overrun in MIA on the MD80 and another overrun in Guyana a while back. Not too bad an airline, but some "cowboy" pilots were in the mix. There was an instance in the 80's when the tower at the then Timehri airport would not issue takeoff clearance due to airport conditions, but the BWIA captain disregarded everything, and if my memory serves me correctly, took off from the shorter 5000 ft. runway in the MD80.