Industry in shock as aviation ‘legend’ dies in crash

MAJOR DUDLEY Beek, known as a ‘legend’ in Jamaica’s aviation industry, plunged to his death in a plane crash yesterday morning in the Ballard’s Valley area of Highgate, St Mary.

The passenger on the aircraft with Beek survived.

Both men were airlifted to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) where the passenger underwent treatment. Major Beek was said to have been unresponsive at the crash site.

While on location at UHWI, the mother of the passenger who survived told The Gleaner that he was in “stable condition”.

She declined to furnish any other detail.

A release from the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA), the statutory organisation responsible for regulating Jamaica’s aviation industry, confirmed the incident.

“An aircraft departed the Tinson Pen Aerodrome for the Ian Fleming International Airport at 9:03 a.m. (1403 UTC), on Friday, May 5, 2023, with two souls on board. Regrettably, the aircraft crashed in the Ballard’s Valley area of Highgate, St Mary, at approximately 9:30 a.m. (1430 UTC), according to confirmed reports,” the JCAA revealed in a release.

It added: “The Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority expresses its deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those affected by the aircraft accident that occurred.”

Beek is the former commanding officer of the Jamaica Defence Force’s (JDF) Air Wing Reserves and Edward Miller, president of Jamaica Aviation Operators and Pilots Association, expressed shock.

“We are all very close and the entire community now is in shock,” he told The Gleaner.

“I am still in shock. But he is a legend and (his passing) will leave a significant gap within the aviation community and he is going to be greatly missed,” a grieving Miller shared.

The 57-year-old Miller said that he first met Beek when he started learning to fly at age 18, adding that they were very close, having worked together in aviation as well as administration for quite a long time.

He disclosed that Major Beek had been licensed in Jamaica and the United States as a pilot and an aircraft engineer.

Family of aviators

Beek has two sons, as well as a grandson, who are pilots. He hails from a family of aviators, starting with his maternal grandfather, who fought in World War I, and his father, Victor, who was a member of the Royal Air Force.

His father, the first commanding officer of the JDF Air Wing, cheated death in 1960 when he missed a return flight from New York on a Lockheed L-1049E Super Constellation aircraft.

The Gleaner reported that the Colombia-bound commercial aircraft Avianca Flight 671, on approaching the runway for a scheduled stop in Montego Bay and then Kingston, on January 21, 1960, made a heavy touchdown, bounced, then skidded down the runway in flames, before coming to a stop about 1,900 feet from the landing strip threshold. Thirty-five passengers and two crew members died, including three Jamaicans. Only nine persons survived the most disastrous aviation accident in Jamaica’s history. Beek, who was quoted in that Gleaner article, said he was a 12-year-old at the time his father survived that 1960 crash.

The cause of yesterday’s crash is yet to be determined.

“We don’t know the cause and even if it seems obvious, you still have to eliminate all the other causes before you come to a conclusion and I expect that process will take a while,” Miller told The Gleaner.

Meanwhile, the JCAA said the airplane was authorised to operate in Jamaica up to January 19, 2024 and that its accident team was carrying out investigations at the site of the accident, supported by police personnel.