Release of GDF helicopter crash report still in limbo

Last Updated on Thursday, 5 June 2025, 11:40 by Writer

The investigation report on the crash of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) helicopter, which occurred almost 18 months ago, is to be considered by the Cabinet, but Public Works Minister Juan Edghill was unsure when this would be done.

“I wish I knew the date. I have not been able to discuss it with my Cabinet as yet so as soon I get it through Cabinet,” he told Demerara Waves Online News. He explained that, as a “delegated authority,” he must exercise fairness by first discussing the report with the Cabinet before releasing the document to the public. The minister said “I don’t want to make a prediction” when the report would be made public, against the backdrop of Guyana now in an election mode and Cabinet’s “very extensive” agenda.

Mr Edghill declined to divulge whether the report points to an error by veteran defence force pilot Mike Charles that resulted in the crash on December 6, 2023, that killed him and four other servicemen. Two others, including the copilot, survived the crash over dense jungle about 30 miles from Guyana’s border with Venezuela.

Industry sources believed that government was reluctant to release the report because Charles’ otherwise unblemished aviation career in the GDF could appear unfavourable. “I would not say that. There is nothing to suggest that the hearsay that existed out there, how the co-pilot was not in his seat and all the various theories that you’re hearing out there, I haven’t seen that in the report,” he said. “I’m not going to say that. We lost some of our finest men in that mishap. We lost some of our finest men and I am not going to say that government would be reluctant to release a report,” he also said.

At the same time, he reiterated that “I cannot say” what caused the crash until the report is published.

Last month, GDF Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier Omar Khan declined to say whether he would still classify Charles as a hero if the investigation report finds that he was in error. “I would wait for what the report says and will not comment on that.” He said the GDF was a “stakeholder” of the probe and the Public Works Ministry is legally mandated to spearhead such an investigation. Mr Khan said he would make the findings of a GDF internal Board of Inquiry public when the Public Works Ministry releases its report.

The Public Works Minister, however, dismissed all assumptions about the reason behind the non-disclosure of the report to date, emphasising that government had no intention of covering up the findings. “We have no interest whatsoever in hiding what are the facts and, by the way, there is no reluctance,” he said. While he was careful to state that he was not saying there was pilot error, an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13 report on an aircraft accident or incident could not be used in court proceedings. “There is no reluctance. It is just a matter of process,” he said.

The Bell 412EPI helicopter was transporting the servicemen to an interior location, amid heightened tension between Guyana and Venezuela over the latter’s decades-old claim to the Essequibo Region.