Civil Aviation: Cause of Air Taxi seaplane crash not determined yet

The reason the Maldivian Air Taxi seaplane had crashed into the sea last Tuesday was likely because “some part of the plane” had made contact with the water by accident while the plane was coming in for a landing, the Civil Aviation Ministry has said.

The Ministry said that the Twin-Otter DHC-6 model Maldivian Air Taxi seaplane had crashed into the Halavelhi Resort lagoon while coming in for a landing after taking some photographers on a photo-flight over the resort.

None of the passengers or crew members were injured in the accident which occurred around 10:15am. One of the passengers had suffered a minor cut to the forehead during the accident, the Civil Aviation team investigating the crash said.

In an interview given to TVM, one of the investigators, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Ibrahim Rasheed, said that the plane had crashed because some part of the plane had made contact with the water as it was coming in for a landing but did not specify which part of the plane it was. He also admitted that this was pure speculation based on what people were saying.

“This is just a theory at this time,” he said. “We can only say anything definitely after the investigation is over.”

There were four foreigners and three Maldivian crew members – the pilot, co-pilot and cabin crew – onboard the plane when it crashed. The investigative team had removed all the documents and other items from inside the plane after the crash. The Civil Aviation said that they were currently interviewing the crew and passengers of the plane to get an idea of what had happened. The investigation team said that so far it didn’t seem likely that any sort of mechanical or technical failure had been the cause of the crash.

The Maldivian Air Taxi has so far refused to comment on the incident.