16580: lyall: that air crash (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: j.david lyall <j.david@lyalls.net>

I was distressed to read about this plane crash in Cap Haitian.
I have flown these Tropical Airways planes before and thought
they were real nice third world craft.

They are soviet block planes. Built in czechistan with cyrillic markings
in the interior. For those who don't know them they look like a small
military transport; high wing, twin engined and belly landing gear. They look like
a C-123 miniaturized.

I spoke to a pilot once before taking off and he said that they were
'like a jeep. just check the oil and tires'.

The overloading story is believable, but an engine exploding sounds different.
I will be wary of flying tropical now, unfortunately.

The alternative, Carib Inter air (something like that) has/had much smaller
single engined cessna's with a turbo prop.