By Tribune Staff Reporter

The plane carrying 11 Bahamians which was forced to ditch into the sea on election day when both engines failed should not have been flying, according to the crash investigating authority.

The Civil Aeronautics Authority of Panama, where the aircraft was registered, said documentation allowing it to be airborne expired in June 2025.

Managing Director, Captain Rafael Barcenas, told The Tribune yesterday: “It is correct that that aircraft could not fly after June 4, 2025.

“Panama carries out the investigations but with little success given the little collaboration.”

Capt Barcenas was unable to confirm reports that the aircraft, a Beechcraft 300 King Air twin-prop, registration HP-1859, belonged to convicted drug trafficker Jonathan Gardiner, one of ten passengers, along with pilot Ian Nixon, rescued by the crew of a US military helicopter and flown to Melbourne, Florida.

Bahamas CAA Director General Ms Chequita Johnson said yesterday she was unable to comment as there was an ongoing investigation.

The day after being rescued, Gardiner, known as ‘Player,’ was arrested by US authorities and indicted on drug smuggling conspiracy charges in connection with a three-year drugs conspiracy operation centred on The Bahamas. It is alleged he was carrying three phones and a cross-body bag with approximately $30,000 in Bahamian currency, according to the US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The cash was packed ‘in a manner consistent with narcotics proceeds,’ DEA Special Agent Michael Coleman said in charging documents. The money had a handwritten label of a person's name – which was redacted in court documents and referred to as ‘Politician-1.’

Gardiner, 58, appeared in court in Orlando, Florida on Friday, May 15. It is believed he has been transferred into the custody of the investigating authority, the Southern District of New York (SDNY). In 2014, he was deported from the US and banned from returning. At the time, he was eight years into an 18-year prison sentence for being a member of a major cocaine trafficking ring.

There is currently no further court hearing scheduled, according to an SDNY press spokesman.

The Tribune yesterday revealed that Mr Nixon had categorically denied being an undercover informant for the United States Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The DEA is said to have used at least three undercover cooperating sources (CSs) during a three-year-long operation into Gardiner and members of a Drug Trafficking Organisation (DTO) based in Georgia.

Mr Nixon, who has been the subject of widespread speculation and conspiracy theories because of the extraordinary set of circumstances surrounding the May 12 incident, said: “I was never working for the DEA, never in my life – not currently, not ever.”

The 43-year-old father-of-three also dismissed ‘crazy’ accusations that he purposely crash-landed at sea to allow American authorities to arrest Gardiner, alleged to be a key player in an undercover DEA operation running on Bahamian soil for at least the last three years.