Savitri Harris and her children outside a doctor’s office in New Amsterdam
A passenger who was onboard the ill-fated Caribbean Airlines’ jetliner that overshot the runway at Timehri on July 30 wants a refund of her ticket money. Savitri Harris is also very critical of the service offered by the carrier.
The woman, who took her three children to Guyana for the second time, told this publication that she is very disappointed with the efforts of Caribbean Airlines to restore public confidence and help the traumatised passengers.
Harris was at a physician’s office in New Amsterdam, seeking treatment for injuries she and her two daughters sustained.
She said that her 10-year-old, Sara, had sprained her left ankle, and her elder daughter Crystal, 11, was hurt when the roof of the plane collapsed on her head. She has several bumps on her head at where she was struck.
Harris herself is enduring neck, head and back pains.
The worried mother stated that the JFK to Trinidad leg of the trip was very good, but when the jetliner lifted off en route to Timehri, she just felt uneasy as it hurriedly ascended.
Shortly after filling out immigration forms, Harris stated, she and her children prepared for the touchdown.
“The plane dropped and it picked up back… I said to myself like we’re not gonna land anymore… then the plane crashed down again… then the plane started to crash with us in there… break in pieces… then we started to scream… I said it’s death,” the woman recalled.
Harris said the plane broke right over the seat in front of the one she had occupied – just behind the executive lounge. “I have not been contacted by anybody who has offered us any therapy (or) to talk to us; and most of all, I want to know what happened to that plane… my major concern.” Harris disclosed that even though she received the US$500 comfort allowance from the airline, it cannot take away the trauma her children experienced.
“The problem is the way they treat people… they should really look into the way they train their staff… My son, he is very petrified… he’s screaming out, restless nights… unable to sleep, and he does not want to go back on the airline to go home… Definitely, I’m going back with Delta…,” the woman said.
She said that after jumping off the plane’s wing to safety, she saw the pilot and asked him what went wrong. “I saw him staggering and I said to him ‘What was the reason you crashed this plane like this?’… there were people screaming out to him, … he just keep saying, ‘sorry’…,” the woman said. The family’s luggage was recovered and returned to them on Sunday, July 31. “My suitcases are ripped and tampered, and I think most of the things I left home with are not there… In the state of mind I’m in, I’ll have to sit and go through everything,” Harris explained. The woman who finally travelled to Berbice to be with relatives, stated that she and her children are due to return to the USA on August 15, and after that traumatic encounter she is not certain what is going to happen when it’s time to board another plane.
“I had to jump from off the top of the plane wing… A big guy kicked the emergency glass door open and we escaped on the wings… because nobody is there and there is a height of about six feet to the ground… there was nobody there. What I did, I turn my son around and I pushed him … I said, ‘God, if he break his foot is better than him dying on the plane if it blow up… At that point it was only us, people had gotten off already and running away… I jump, Crystal jumped, and Sara jumped, that’s how she got the fracture … we happen to escape by the grace of God.”
