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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Still no report into chopper crash months later

by

Peter Christopher
1998 days ago
20200205
Flashback: The National Helicopter which crash landed in Windy Hill, Arouca, during the search for escaped prisoners.

Flashback: The National Helicopter which crash landed in Windy Hill, Arouca, during the search for escaped prisoners.

Abraham Diaz

More than eight months since a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter crashed in Windy Hill Arou­ca, a re­port about the in­ci­dent still has not been re­leased from the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty to Na­tion­al He­li­copters Ser­vice Lim­it­ed.

This was re­vealed by Chair­man of the com­pa­ny Lar­ry McIn­tosh be­fore a Pub­lic Ac­counts (En­ter­pris­es) Com­mit­tee meet­ing on Mon­day af­ter he was asked by com­mit­tee chair­man Wade Mark about the crash.

"Any spe­cif­ic or de­tails re­lat­ing to that in­ci­dent, we are con­strained by reg­u­la­tions be­cause the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty who have been do­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion have not yet re­leased a re­port on that, and there­fore we can­not say or do any­thing that would ap­pear to prej­u­dice what their find­ings may turn out to be," said McIn­tosh.

On May 15 last year, a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty He­li­copter crashed in a forest­ed area in Arou­ca while as­sist­ing in a search for prison es­capees. All oc­cu­pants on board the air­craft were un­hurt.

In re­sponse to a fol­low-up in­quiry from Wade Mark con­cern­ing sal­vaging of the air­craft through re­pairs, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Cap­tain Nathaniel Noth­nagel al­so re­vealed that at­tempt­ing to re­pair the crashed he­li­copter, which was leased and not owned by NHSL, was im­prac­ti­cal.

'The cost of re­pair would ex­ceed the mar­ket val­ue of the he­li­copter at this time, so no re­pairs are not con­tem­plat­ing. The com­pa­ny is in the process of sourc­ing a re­place­ment air­craft" said Noth­nagel.

The com­mit­tee was al­so told that sev­er­al ground­ed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copters had not yet been of­fi­cial­ly trans­ferred to the NHSL, but had been un­der preser­va­tion by the com­pa­ny.

Noth­nagel said while the he­li­copters were not present­ly able to fly, they could be made ready if need be.

Ear­li­er in the Com­mit­tee hear­ing, chair­man Lar­ry McIn­tosh con­firmed the com­pa­ny had strug­gled to be prof­itable, as the ma­jor­i­ty of its ser­vices were linked to medi­vac ser­vices, dis­as­ter as­sis­tance and trans­porta­tion to off­shore rigs of oil and gas com­pa­nies.

McIn­tosh said the com­pa­ny how­ev­er suf­fered dur­ing the down­turn in the en­er­gy sec­tor and al­so faced im­mense com­pe­ti­tion from for­eign com­pa­nies that pro­vid­ed sim­i­lar ser­vices.

Noth­nagel ex­plained in some cas­es they were at a dis­ad­van­tage to oth­er he­li­copters ser­vices present in the coun­try, name­ly Pe­tro­le­um He­li­copters and Bris­tow He­li­copters who were ca­pa­ble of pro­vid­ing larg­er he­li­copters with­in a short­er time­frame to these com­pa­nies.

McIn­tosh said the com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, had ex­pand­ed its ser­vices to Guyana and had been seek­ing to ex­tend its reach to Suri­name in the fu­ture.


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