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Joined: Apr 2000
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TROPIC AIR CESSNA CARAVAN DITCHES IN SEA EN ROUTE TO THE CAYES A Tropic Air Cessna Grand Caravan with 13 passengers aboard crashed around 5:30 pm Wednesday, March 9, just seconds after leaving the municipal airstrip in Belize City, reportedly in a squall. No one was seriously injured, according to Alvaro Rosado, administrator of Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in Belize City. Six passengers were admitted to the hospital but were ambulatory, said Rosado in an e-mail. He said he was contacted at 5:50 p.m. about the crash. Tropic Air flight 515 was enroute to Caye Caulker and San Pedro (Ambergris Caye). The Belize municipal airstrip, used only for domestic flights, is located right on the seashore. In late December 2002 another Tropic Air Caravan ditched in the sea on approach to San Pedro. There also were 13 passengers aboard that flight. Several passengers were injured, but there were no fatalities. Tropic Air claimed it was an emergency landing. In March 2004 a four-year-old Tropic Cessna Grand Caravan was ditched near Punta Gorda -- no passengers on board, no fatalities. The airline was founded in 1979 in San Pedro by an American expat.


Lan Sluder/Belize First
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It went into the water only a few hundred feet after taking off from municipal, which of course sits right beside the water.

Alvaro Rosado at KHMH says he was contacted a little before 6 p.m. to be on alert for possible mass casulties, but that at this point all the passengers are ambulatory.

Doubtless scared to death, though.

--Lan Sluder


Lan Sluder/Belize First
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Any idea who the pilot was?

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Sorry, don't know who was piloting it.

--Lan Sluder


Lan Sluder/Belize First
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According to what I was told there was at least one passenger being dropped at Caye Caulker before going on to San Pedro.

--Lan Sluder


Lan Sluder/Belize First
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Separately, there was a Maya Island crash near PG last April, with six passengers aboard. Again thankfully no serious injuries or fatalities.

Still, four crashes in a little over two years ... you start to a worry a bit. On a per air-mile basis, given the short distances in Belize, is maybe not an ideal record.

But flying is still far safer than driving.

--Lan Sluder


Lan Sluder/Belize First
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There was a fairly big storm that moved into the area today around that time.

The cessna caravan is a tuff machine, i've seen one crash face first out of takeoff when some cargo shifted back and stalled the plane, it dropped out of the sky from about 300 ft and only 1 pilot had a broken leg.

Having said that, I'm amazed sometimes how the maya and tropic guys take off with a tailwind.

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about that Maya crash, I think it was a turbo compressor failure and the pilot glided it into the water.

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Frankly, it has always amazed me that there aren't more incidents with the number of flights and the winds that can exist. That said, that there've been no serious injuries is a bonus.

I wonder how long this thread will stay up.


A fish and a bird can fall in love, but where will they build their nest?

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I'll keep it alive seashell! smile

I've landed with 40kt gusting winds in the middle of winter, but it was only about 30 degrees off the nose, which keeps it pretty close to it's crosswind coefficient. For the life of me, I can't remember what the # is for a caravan, I think 18kts or so. But that's just a recommendation.

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