The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority is investigating after a plane suffered a nose gear collapse in South Abaco early Thursday.

Delvin Major, AAIA chief investigator of air accident investigations, told The Tribune yesterday investigators were alerted to the incident sometime around 9am.

He said the plane, which was enroute to Abaco from New Providence, had five passengers onboard, including the pilot.

He said no one was injured.

“We got the report that an aircraft had an incident this morning at the airport in Sandy Point,” Captain Major told this newspaper.

“Upon further enquiries we found the aircraft landed and the nose gear collapsed which caused the aircraft to veer off the runway and there were five persons onboard and nobody was injured so it was in what we would term as a minor incident. It was not a crash. After the plane landed, the gear just collapsed.”

“We are not sure of the nationalities of the individuals onboard. That’s something we’re still gathering from the authorities on that side. They’re still gathering the information to send that over to us,” he said.

Captain Major could not say what led to the incident as investigations are still ongoing

He said: “We’re still gathering information as far as the pilot information, maintenance information to determine whether maintenance was being done in accordance with the regulations and other items like that we’re looking into.”

Sources close to this newspaper said eyewitnesses claimed they had tried to stop the plane from landing ahead of the incident. “They said they had not seen the gear extended on approach, but they were not successful in alerting the pilot that the gears were still up,” the source said.

In July, two Bahamian pilots who flew into Treasure Cay died after their plane crashed, erupting into flames. Investigations later revealed the pilots were not qualified to fly the aircraft.