The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE wife of missing Bahamian pilot Clayton Patterson Smith said she keeps questioning “what went wrong” that caused her husband’s plane to disappear in waters off New Providence, saying his years of flying experience had taught him to carefully check weather conditions before every flight.

“I pray that he is alive,” his wife of 18 years, Lauralynn Smith told The Tribune yesterday. “I know that whatever I have seen on the radar,  it's unclear or uncertain as to what could possibly be the end result. But I can only remain hopeful.”

Captain Smith, a 53-year-old father of three, was travelling to New Providence from Exuma on Sunday to collect a passenger and a part for a tractor machinery when he disappeared. He told his family he would be gone for a few hours and expected to return later that night. However, while enroute, the unthinkable happened.

He lost contact with Air Traffic Control around 3pm after making a distress call about 30 nautical miles south of New Providence. Neither Captain Smith nor the aircraft has been seen since.

Mrs Smith said she first learned of her husband’s disappearance from their son later that day.

“He said ‘Mom, I'm hearing that dad went off the radar, and they don't know where he went’,” she said. “So he was like ‘I wonder what has gone wrong, but I heard the weather was very bad in Nassau’.”

The family tried calling Captain Smith several times, but were unable to reach him.

FlightRadar data showed the plane travelling towards New Providence at an altitude of about 6,700 feet before circling and then rapidly descending.

He was the sole passenger aboard the Piper PA-32 aircraft, registration C6PA.

Captain Smith, who also worked as a boat captain and tour guide, departed for New Providence around 2.32pm in what his wife described as “fine” weather.

Mrs Smith said her husband submitted his flight plan and would usually check the weather before take-off.

“So I don't know what went wrong,” she added. “Why he wasn't notified that the weather was bad on the Nassau end, but definitely if you look at his path, he had a smooth flight all the way through until he got into Nassau.”

The concerned wife said she was unaware of the poor weather in New Providence, but believes those conditions along with reduced visibility may have contributed to the crash.

“Once I was told how terrible the weather was, I was praying that he got assistance,” she added.

The Royal Bahamas Defence Force, Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association and US Coast Guard quickly mobilised after being notified of the missing aircraft, but search efforts were suspended Sunday night due to bad weather.

Search operations resumed yesterday morning, with Smith’s son, his sister, who is also a Defence Force officer, and private boaters joining the effort.

His brother, Eugene, told The Tribune that the family would not stop searching until he was found.

Mrs Smith, who is also a principal, said she has been unable to sleep and has been left “heavy-hearted” since the incident.

She went to work yesterday to keep herself distracted and avoid dwelling on the crash.

National Security Minister Myles Laroda, meanwhile, said search teams would use specialised software to help predict where the plane may have drifted after going down.

“Due to currents and and other weather elements, the plane could probably change in location so specifically, there are software that could predict the location based on time and and the current,” he told reporters yesterday.

Acting Prime Minister Chester Cooper said in a statement yesterday that he was hoping for Smith’s safe return and that his thoughts and prayers were with the pilot’s family.

The Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Aviation also released a statement on the search efforts, saying further updates would be provided by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority and the Ministry of Transport.

An aviation severe weather alert, known as a SIGMET, was issued two hours before the pilot took off from Exuma.

The SIGMET (Severe Meteorological Information) warned of a block of frequent thunderstorms covering Grand Bahama, Abaco, New Providence, and Andros, lasting until 4.20pm.

According to the advisory, the storm cells were so densely packed they covered over 75 per cent of the area, creating a near-continuous wall of severe weather.

Satellite weather imagery provided to The Tribune by the Bahamas Aviation, Climate and Severe Weather Network (BACSWN) confirms intense meteorological activity building heavily south of New Providence from 2pm.

The images show that the sky over Exuma was largely clear. The SIGMET was issued by The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City on behalf of the Miami Oceanic Flight Information Region.