While it is not completely unheard of, commercial air carriers crashing in the Caribbean is a relatively rare occurrence. However, people around the Caribbean are waking up this morning to the news that a plane carrying one hundred and sixty-two persons, inclusive of  8 crew members, came down amid torrential rains in Guyana at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport .

The crash happened about 1:30 am some three hours after its scheduled landing. The Caribbean Airlines craft broke in two after it shot past the runway because it couldn’t stop.

No lives were lost, although there were some resulting injuries such as the pilot’s broken leg.

Almost every year it is safe to say that the summer will not be complete without a commercial aircraft falling out of the sky somewhere in the world. I think that is so because the summer months are the unofficial “fly a plane” season. There have been reports from various aviation officials that often times pilots are overworked, and some even admitted falling asleep while thousands of miles above the earth.

In fact, the Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic ocean in June 2009, just three hours into its eleven hour flight from Brazil to Paris, was at the time without its senior pilot in the cockpit. That is what the data recovered from the black boxes reveal. The captain had gone back in the cabin to sleep, apparently.

Readers of Ashford Daniel Writes will recall that I recently posted entries that dealt with  Caribbean Airlines and how its Trinidad government is greatly subsidizing its fuel for it to have a comparative advantage in the evolving Caribbean market; but even with a government hand out the Trinidad public was still grasping the available flights being offered by Redjet. Redjet is soon to commence operations to Trinidad and Tobago.

With the crash now of a Caribbean Airlines aircraft, exactly what impact will that have on the future demands for seats on Redjet and on Caribbean Airlines?

Officials in Trinidad will hold a press conference later this morning on this breaking news.