Rhon­dor Dowlat

Lo­cal avi­a­tion pi­o­neer Har­riper­sad Dass (Har­ry), chair­man and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Briko Air Ser­vices Ltd, died over the week­end af­ter suf­fer­ing in­juries from an ac­ci­den­tal fall in Mi­a­mi.

His death came as a shock to his three chil­dren, fam­i­ly mem­bers and staff at Briko Air Ser­vices lo­cat­ed at Pi­ar­co and Cam­den in Cou­va.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian on Mon­day at the com­pa­ny in Cam­den, Cou­va base, Rooplal Dass, bet­ter known as Roops, chief pi­lot op­er­a­tor and di­rec­tor, said that his broth­er, who was on va­ca­tion, made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the avi­a­tion in­dus­try in T&T.

Har­ry, who had his pri­vate pi­lot li­cence and was a qual­i­fied en­gi­neer, es­tab­lished Briko Air Ser­vices Ltd in 1983. The com­pa­ny pro­vides train­ing for pri­vate pi­lots. Har­ry fol­lowed in the foot­steps of his un­cle, the late Jag­nar­ine Dass.

In 2010, Briko start­ed of­fer­ing com­mer­cial flight train­ing for fixed-wing air­craft.

Rooplal said his broth­er was a go-get­ter. He will now have to take over the reigns of the com­pa­ny.

"He al­ways said let's get the job done. What­ev­er chal­lenges he met with he would al­ways tell me to take up the pieces, look for­ward and make it hap­pen," Rooplal said.

An­oth­er broth­er, Kishore, re­called one of his best mo­ment's was go­ing on a "spe­cial flight" with Har­ry, in his younger years.

"Har­ry did his aer­o­bat­ic train­ing and had a spe­cial aer­o­bat­ic air­craft, a Cess­na 150 Aer­o­bat, and he took me on a flight and was do­ing aer­o­bat­ic ma­neu­vo­ers, that was just so mem­o­rable for me."

Asked what's next for Briko Air Ser­vices, Rooplal said that there would be a meet­ing with the di­rec­tors of the com­pa­ny to de­ter­mine the com­pa­ny's next step but as­sured that his broth­er's lega­cy and dreams would live on. The com­pa­ny al­so of­fers ser­vices for aer­i­al spray­ing for the con­trol of nui­sance pests, con­trol of for­est fires, aer­i­al map­ping, flight train­ing and pub­lic air trans­port.

Har­ry's fu­ner­al will be held lat­er this week fol­lowed by his cre­ma­tion, at the Wa­ter­loo Cre­ma­tion Site.

Rooplal said they were prepar­ing a spe­cial send off for Har­ry with a fly-by dis­play, us­ing sev­er­al of Briko's air­craft, one of which will car­ry an aer­i­al ban­ner bear­ing a spe­cial mes­sage.

David Leader, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Ea­gles Wings Avi­a­tion Mis­sion Inc, yes­ter­day gave cred­it to Har­ry Dass and Briko Air for a part­ner­ship they helped to cre­ate.

"I was seek­ing a co-spon­sor for a stu­dent to pur­sue flight train­ing and they will­ing­ly ac­cept­ed. To­day that stu­dent is a com­mer­cial pi­lot at an in­ter­na­tion­al air­line. He (Har­ry) along with his de­vot­ed broth­er Roops was tru­ly help­ing to make a dif­fer­ence, and for this I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful," Leader said.