News of a fatal plane crash at about 5:30 p.m. on Friday that killed Belizean business titan Sir Barry Bowen, 64, a resident of Ambergris Caye, and the Casey family of four, has shocked the nation.
Sir Barry’s four passengers were a family, Michael Casey, 32; his wife Jillian, also 32; their 2 ½-year-old daughter Makayla; and infant son 5-month-old Bryce. They were flying from the Belize City Municipal Airstrip to the San Pedro Airstrip, a daily routine – at least for Sir Barry, who reports say has been flying airplanes for over 40 years. The party was headed for a charity fundraiser to be held that evening at the Island Academy in San Pedro Town.
The Caseys were residents at Sir Bowen’s Gallon Jug property in the Orange Walk District, and teachers at the community school.
As the plane, a modified white Cessna with single Rolls-Royce engine, descended and closed in on the airstrip, according to an eyewitness with whom we spoke on Saturday morning, it suddenly clipped some galvanized iron pipes standing up from a dredge near a house west of Captain Shark’s Boatyard, and then flipped several times before crash-landing into the water-logged clay marsh behind a closed-up concrete building that is to be used as a hardware store.
One of the plane’s wings came off in the crash, multiple sources say.
The crash took place in the DFC Housing Area, some 2 miles south of the airstrip and downtown San Pedro.
Bob Gabourel, an employee of Captain Shark’s, and some of his co-workers were among the first on the scene. “We were hanging around near the front of the yard when I heard a loud bang and people screaming, then one of the guys came running over and said, ‘A plane just crashed,’ and we drove to the scene in the boss’ boat.”
He told Amandala on Saturday they came across the wrecked shell of the plane and, lying 20 to 30 feet away, a man face up in a pool of water, bleeding profusely from the ears, mouth and nose, but still nonetheless barely alive. (This was apparently Michael Casey, as Sir Barry was trapped in the plane. He later died at the scene.)
One of those present on the boat, who is a tour operator and knows first aid, began to attempt to assist the man to breathe and carefully pulled him to dry land. Closer to the plane lay what appeared to be the body of an infant boy, Bryce Casey, also face up in a puddle, but clearly dead, a large gash visible on the forehead.
Gabourel told us that he then noticed, inside the plane, what appeared to be a woman crouched down facing away from them, apparently motionless and not responding to the rescuers’ calls to her.
Walking around to the other side of the plane, Gabourel told us, he beheld the likewise lifeless body of Sir Barry in the pilot’s seat.
As another of the would-be rescuers attempted to collect various items such as wallets and other valuable possessions that had fallen out of the plane, police responded to the scene and a crowd, estimated at first to be between 10 and 20 persons, but which reportedly later grew to 1,000 according to a television report, gathered at the site.
The crash led both major newscasts and topped the news reports on all major radio stations on Friday evening, and as the images beamed out and Belizeans watched at home and abroad, the family of Barry Bowen – wife Lady Dixie Bowen (nee Summerscales) and his four sons and one daughter gathered at the scene. We are told that Lady Bowen was very emotional as she beheld the tragedy that had overtaken her husband.
Sir Barry’s body was transported into Belize City by boat around 9:00 Friday night.
By our own preliminary research and estimate, it is the deadliest aviation accident in Belizean territory in the last decade or so. The Belize Weather Bureau had forecasted winds NW, at 5 to 10 knots, at around 6 p.m., but at press time, we were unable to get an accurate idea of wind speed at the airport at the time of the accident.
In October of 2005, well-known pilot Luis Rene Tam, 35, former basketball star with the Kremandala Raiders and former chief pilot for Maya Island Air, and his two American passengers Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Scratchley, Jr. died almost instantly when the Blancaneaux Lodge’s twin-engine Islander aircraft crashed into the side of a mountain on the property of Mount Pleasant Resort in the Cayo District, while en route to Blancaneaux from the Phillip Goldson International Airport.
In July of 1998, the pilot and three tourists from Houston, Texas, U.S.A. died when upon experiencing mechanical problems during a flight from the P.G.I.A. to San Pedro, a request was granted to return to the airport, but the twin-engine Beechcraft crash-landed near the Belize River en route and burst into flames.
Amandala’s research shows that it is not the first time the Bowen plane has gotten into trouble: in May of 2004, one of Bowen’s sons and two passengers, one a minor, escaped injury when the pilot’s seat broke, and the plane veered left of the runway at the Municipal Airstrip.
The Police Department has refused even to identify anyone involved in the crash, save Sir Barry Bowen.
Michael and Jillian Casey (nee Schuessler) were originally from Albany, New York, U.S.A. and taught school at the Gallon Jug Community School located on Sir Barry’s property in Orange Walk (Michael taught U.S. grades 3 and 4 and served as principal, and Jill, U.S. grades 7 and 8, according to NBC affiliate WNYT-TV of Albany and newspaper the Albany Times-Union.)
“Their hearts were just so big,” Michael’s mother Penny Casey told WNYT on Sunday. “They had so much to give and it’s going to be spread through Gallon Jug because the love was just there.”
The couple married four years ago in Vermont, but had moved to Belize together in 2001, nine years ago, “… for an opportunity to teach outside…the United States. We also came here to meet other ethnic groups and to see the rainforest of Belize. Belize still has 70% of its rainforests left to be explored and that attracted us,” Mike wrote in an introductory letter posted on the website of the Global Coalition, “an international community of schools dedicated to the cultural exchange of knowledge, ideas and projects,” according to its website.
According to WNYT, the Casey family is known in the area for its charitable work.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation by the Department of Civil Aviation, although an eyewitness told us that the galvanized pipes that the plane hit were bent and broken. A spokesman for the Department told Amandala today that a press conference originally scheduled for this afternoon in relation to the crash investigation findings has been postponed because investigators were still out in the field gathering data. International inspectors from Cessna Corporation, the manufacturers of the aircraft, and Rolls Royce, the manufacturers of the engine, are in Belize assisting with the investigation, according to a press release from Bowen and Bowen.
The Government of Belize announced via press release this morning that the funeral is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, at St. John’s Cathedral on Albert Street at 10:00 a.m. The body leaves the KHMH morgue at 9:00 a.m. and will be taken down St. Thomas Street, Freetown Road, Mapp Street (past the Riverside Tavern), North Front Street, over the Swing Bridge and onto Albert Street to the Cathedral.
After the funeral service, the procession will travel out of the City via Yarborough Road and Central American Boulevard to San Ignacio Town, where Sir Barry will be laid to rest in the town cemetery in the afternoon, with official wreath laying and other graveside honors.
This afternoon, at 2:00, a memorial service will be held at the Island Academy in La Isla Bonita in honor of Sir Barry Bowen. A memorial service for the Caseys will be held in Gallon Jug on Wednesday, March 3, at the community school at which they taught; funeral services will take place in the United States at a time undetermined.
The management of Bowen and Bowen said in a press release: “Bowen & Bowen, Ltd. and its subsidiary companies, as well as Belize Aquaculture, Ltd., will continue business as usual. Announcements with reference to any future changes in the corporate structure will be made at the appropriate time.
Monday, March 1st will be business hours as usual with the exception of San Pedro Distributors which will be closed from 1:00 p.m. to allow the employees to attend the memorial. After the memorial the distribution center will be re-opened to complete the routes for the day.
All distribution centers and offices will be closed for business on Tuesday, March 2nd to allow the employees to pay their respects.”