Remembering LIAT Flight 319

This year, 2011,  marks exactly twenty-five (25) years since Vincentians at home and abroad were plunged into their most horrifically tragic air disaster in the history of commercial air flight in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

It was on August 3, 1986, that LIAT flight 319 disappeared while attempting to land at the Arnos Vale airport (now renamed The ET Joshua Airport). While all incidents that result in loss of lives are tragic, the untimely deaths of the thirteen souls on board were particularly stinging to all sections of the Vincentian society. That single flight combined a unique mix of some of the most progressive nation builders in our country at the time.

Quite possibly the face that comes to the minds of those of us who were around twenty-five years ago and now recall that stormy Sunday night, is that of Donna Young. Donna epitomized the youthful beauty, charm, female empowerment and potential of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Donna was a bank worker. She had just turned age twenty. She had won the Miss SVG and Miss Carival show right here at home in St Vincent during the same year. Her smile lit up the stage like no other. One could not help but love Donna Young. To fully appreciate the connection that the Vincentian public had with Donna Young, think of her as the late Princess Diana of the UK or of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) of the United States of America.. Indeed, Donna was our own Vincentian Princess. She was royal.

Also on that ill-fated flight was a watchmaker who wa physically challenged in that he was an amputee. Imagine a gentleman in his wheel chair and is out and about daily taking orders and repairing watches. Disability was never going to be his inability!

Then there was an entire family of husband, wife and twelve-year-old son who perished that August night. Again, it is expected that anybody’s death will be mourned, but, alas, this was not the average Vincentian family. At just seven years into its political independence from Great Britain, St Vincent and the Grenadines was unfortunate to lose its political opposition leader and his family. Hudson Tannis, along with his wife and son, were returning from a wedding in St Lucia and happened to be aboard flight 319.

The Grenadines also felt the loss of lives because a native of Bequia was returning home with his fiance, both of whom were soon to tie the knot in holy matrimony. But that was never to be.

It has been said that the pilot captaining the flight, although he had been to SVG before, was now doing so as the pilot in command. Apparently, he had an idea where the runway was. Unfortunately, owning to the mountainous terrain of the country, the airport is right next to the Caribbean Sea. Because of the rainfall that night, the place was foggy. Later, residents of Cane Garden will say that they heard the aircraft circling and then the sound of a sputtering engine.

For days and weeks after, all able-bodied man, woman and child, took to the sea and shore to do what they could to find any signs of remains. Apart from a sighting of some floating oil, the remnants of that plane was never to be seen again. At least up to this day. It is said that the waters in the Grenadines are among some of the deepest in the hemisphere.

The following weekend one of the largest and most sombre memorial services was held at the Victoria Park, where everybody who is anybody in St Vincent turned out to sympathize with a grieving nation.

This is the last recorded air mishap that LIAT has had which had a direct impact on Vincentians. For more information on this historic day in the life of St Vincent and the Grenadines feel free to check our national archives.

I hope that our younger generation will at least take a moment today and pause in reflection of the wealth of human and Vincentian potential that we all lost that night. One cannot help but feel that somehow our lives in St Vincent would have been better off as a result of the contributions made by the “unlucky 13″ of LIAT flight 319 back on August 3, 1986.