Blue Wing Airlines 2008 plane crash

Coordinates: 03°41′N 054°05′W / 3.683°N 54.083°W / 3.683; -54.083

On Thursday, April 3, 2008, an Antonov An-28 operated by Blue Wing Airlines (registration PZ-TSO^[1]) crashed upon landing at the Lawa Antino Airport of Benzdorp in Suriname.^[2][3] The plane carried 17 passengers and a crew of 2, all of who died in the crash.^[4]

The crash occurred around 11:00 ART (14:00 UTC). Initial media reports indicate that the airplane had to abort the landing, as the runway was being used by another Bluewing AN-28 aircraft. ^[5] The airplane attempted a go-around, but failed to gain height and crashed into a mountain.^[6]

Casualties

The pilot, Soeriani Jhauw-Verkuijl, was the wife of Blue Wing Airlines president Amichand Jhauw. Her brother and colleague was an eyewitness to the crash.^[6]

Also among the casualties was co-pilot Robert Lackin, as well as a family of six from Antecume Pata, citizens of French Guiana.^[7][8] They were to have flown on to Anapaike.^[6]

A Dutch national police forensic team was dispatched to assist in the identification of victims.^[9][10] While nine of the victims were identified in Suriname, the last ten were identified, using DNA analysis, by the Dutch forensic institute.^[11]

Background

The Antino project sits on part of a rich gold deposit that has been mined since the 1880s. The carrier flies scheduled An-28 flights Monday through Saturday to Antino site 7, where there is a 600-metre gravel strip.^[12]

Flight

The plane had taken off from Zorg en Hoop Airport in Suriname's capital Paramaribo with seventeen passengers and two crew at 10:00 local time.^[13] Eleven were due to disembark at Lawa Antino airstrip, 10 km west of the southeastern gold mining town of Benzdorp, near the Lawa River bordering French Guiana,^[14] where they would work for telecommunications company Telesur.^[15]

References