CoP: We will improvise

COMMISSIONER OF POLICE Gary Griffith said the police would continue to improvise whenever necessary to have air support during police operations.

Griffith expressed a desire for the police to have their own air unit, which would include helicopters and drones for surveillance and searches, and said he will ask the government for the next national budget, but in the meantime, he will continue to use the services of National Helicopter Services Ltd (NHSL) whenever necessary.

He said although the police have a limited air support unit, they will continue to use drones along with renting helicopters from NHSL for much-needed air support. It was revealed yesterday that the police had to call on the state-owned helicopter company as they needed air support to search for eight men who escaped from Golden Grove Prison on Wednesday, and could not get it anywhere else.

Helicopters which were usually used by the Air Guard were said to have been grounded for more than two years, and others which fell under the National Operations Centre were also grounded, except for one, which had only been put back into operation on Thursday.

During the operation, the helicopter, which was occupied by a pilot, a police officer and a prison officer, got into difficulties while searching for the prisoners in the Windy Hill area and had to make a “hard landing” in an open field.

The helicopter was written off. The occupants were unscathed, but sources told Newsday they would remain under observation, although they only suffered minor injuries.

The hard landing prompted questions which eventually revealed that only two out of the ten National Security helicopters that the country owns were in operation.

Questions are also being raised about the hard landing, and what caused the pilot to lose control.

A retiree who worked as a commercial pilot for more than three decades believes the helicopter suffered a failure in the tail rotor, which is used to stabilise the helicopter while in the air. After the rotor failed, the helicopter may have begun to spin, which could have forced the pilot to make a rapid descent.

The former pilot, who also worked for NHSL, said while the company started off in the eighties as the air division of the Ministry of National Security, when its function was part commercial and part national security, in the 90s the company was changed into a more commercial operator. He added that while the company still assisted police in operations in the 90s, it had more to do with offshore support, and the helicopters used to support the police were donated to the air guard, but were subsequently grounded by government because they cost too much to maintain.

The retiree also said it could be possible that the pilot was not prepared to fly in the bushy areas of the forest, being more experienced in transporting passengers offshore

But Griffith denied the speculation, saying the NHSL had done previous several police operations.

“The NHSL has conducted operations with the police before and with great success,” he said. “The helicopter was also well over 500 feet above sea level, so the belief that the helicopter was doing something out of its operational capabilities is false.”

In Parliament yesterday, Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh asked an urgent question about which government entity has been officially commissioned to investigate the crash and when the investigation would be completed.

The Prime Minister said the member, and any MP, must know the authority for investigating any such accident would be the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and described the question about when the investigation would be completed as “facetious.”

He said the investigation will be properly done under the law and he could give no indication of how it would be done.

“And the authority of the CAA will not be usurped,” he added.

Indarsingh asked if the NHSL and its pilot were certified to carry out a law enforcement operation of this nature. Rowley replied that he had no such information and would not try to answer, but if the member filed the question with the appropriate notice a proper answer would be provided.

“But I will not be drawn into making a statement that I do not know the answer to.”

Newsday tried to contact NHSL but officials merely said the matter was being investigated.

Newsday also tried to contact NHSL general manager Nicholas Nothnagel by phone and messages on Facebook Messenger, but to no avail.