Five Guyana De­fence Force (GDF) sol­diers died in Thurs­day’s he­li­copter crash Es­se­qui­bo coun­ty about 30 miles east of the bor­der with Venezuela.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port pub­lished by De­mer­ara Waves , amongst those who per­ished in the crash of the Bell 412 he­li­copter, bear­ing reg­is­tra­tion mark­ing 8R-AYA was vet­er­an he­li­copter pi­lot of 40 years, Lt Col. Michael Charles.

Those who sur­vived are Lieu­tenant Colonel An­dio Michael Craw­ford and Cor­po­ral, Dwayne Jack­son.

The oth­ers who died are Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the 1st In­fantry Bat­tal­ion, Colonel Michael Sha­houd, Re­tired Brigadier Gary Beat­on, Lieu­tenant Colonel Sean Wel­come, and Staff Sergeant Ja­son Khan.

The air­craft went down in bad weath­er on Wednes­day.