The Cessna XB-JMR twin engine aircraft that landed in Rocky Point on Saturday evening.
KINGSTON, Jamaica--A multi-agency probe is now underway into the crash-landing of an aircraft in Rocky Point, Clarendon, on Saturday evening.
Police and civil aviation officials spent Sunday trying to locate the pilot of the aircraft, as well as determining if there were any passengers aboard and why the plane was in Jamaica’s airspace. It is also not yet known where the plane departed from, its flight plan, or what its final intended destination was.
Late Sunday, police said members of the security forces were continuing their search of areas surrounding the White Sands Beach in Rocky Point.
The aircraft – a Cessna XB-JMR twin engine – made a landing on the coast based on claims from citizens who reportedly saw the plane fall from the sky.
Reports from the Lionel Town police are that at about 7:00pm, they were summoned to the location, and upon their arrival the aircraft was spotted and checked. No passengers or cargo were seen in the plane or in its vicinity.
Several checks were made at nearby hospitals, but medical personnel reported that no one from the crash site arrived at their facility.
Residents who braved the crocodile-infested waters to reach the aircraft, told the Jamaica Observer that when they reached the landing site there was no one on-board.
Photos and videos have since been circulated on social media of persons looting items from the aircraft, with one man caught on camera escaping with a door.
The police indicated that based on where the aircraft crash-landed, it was difficult for them to secure the scene.
In the meantime, the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority is also conducting a probe with its Director General Nari Williams-Singh, reporting that the aircraft was not registered to fly.
In a media interview, Williams-Singh said that the aircraft was originally registered in Mexico, but was deregistered and was not noted as having been flown since January 2005. He stressed that the aircraft should not have been operating without a valid registration.
With growing speculation that the aircraft was involved in a covert operation involving illegal drugs, councillor for the Rocky Point Division Winston Maragh on Sunday renewed his call for a marine police post to be established at the Rocky Point Fishing Beach.
“What it does is underscore the need for a marine police post as well as a regular police post in this area. I am calling on the Ministry of National Security to speed up the plans they had to put a police post in that area as soon as possible,” Maragh told the Observer.
