By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

FOUR people are dead after a US registered twin-engine Cessna 340 aircraft crashed in shallow waters five miles northwest of Freeport, Grand Bahama yesterday morning. The plane was inbound from Ormond Beach, Florida, when it went down around 10am.

It took a team six hours to locate and recover the bodies of the victims – all adult Caucasian males – from the wreckage.

“It was a horrendous crash,” according to one member of the recovery crew, who said the bodies were in a gruesome state.

The remains were brought inland around 4pm to a remote docking site off Fortune Bay Drive, where they were loaded into two hearses and taken to the Rand Memorial Hospital morgue.

The victims’ identities are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

According to reports, the Cessna aircraft had taken off from Ormond Beach Municipal Airport in Florida and was en route to Freeport. The cause of the crash is not known and weather does not seem to have been a factor.

Police Inspector Terecita Pinder, press liaison officer, reported that shortly after 10am Air Traffic Control reported that a twin engine Cessna aircraft crashed landed in shallow waters some five miles of Freeport.

Initially it was reported that three males were on board, but it was later discovered that there was a fourth man. BASRA officials, police, and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force immediately responded and deployed vessels to the crash site.

The aircraft was extensively damaged and was in six inches of water. Due to the low tide and extremely shallow water, rescue boats encountered difficulty getting to the wreckage.

Justin Snisky, chairman of BASRA, reported that low tide made recovery efforts “next to impossible.”

“The rescue vessel was forced to pull back before it became stuck. We regrouped and came up with another plan and we also spoke with the US Coast Guard to assist. A helicopter was sent in to survey the area and we launched another rescue attempt to the site,” he said.

Mr Snisky said there were no survivors on board.

A flood boat was deployed around 12:30pm to recover the bodies. Due to the extensive damage to the aircraft, it is believed that the victims died on impact. The bodies were recovered from the aircraft.

“It is a very horrendous crash; the whole front end of the plane was pushed in at least 10ft, and the bodies are very mutilated,” said one rescuer who did not want to be named.

Asked whether there was any evidence of a fire, he said: “There was no fire or fuel in the water. The plane was in six inches of water and we could not get to it when we first got there.”

“We had to walk about half a mile to get to it, to see if there were any survivors on board. We went inside and checked all the bodies – they were all killed on impact, absolutely no question. It was a pretty horrendous crash.”

“The plane is pretty broken up, the wings are broke back and the plane is in half. The whole front end was damaged and some of the bodies we had to extricate from inside.”

A number of police officials and news reporters and photographers waited at the boat dock until the rescue boats arrived around 4pm with the bodies.

Morticians from Restview and Russell & Pinder arrived at the scene and took the bodies to the morgue. Baggage and personal items from the crash site were off-loaded into a police van.

Investigations are continuing into the cause of the crash.