Pilot confirmed dead from Friday’s air crash

Guyanese special forces soldiers have reached the site of Friday’s crash involving a single-engine plane in dense jungle near Brazil and are preparing to retrieve the body of Nicaraguan Captain Ryder Castillo, officials said Monday.

The 13-seater Cessna Caravan was declared missing after it failed to land as expected at the gold mining district of Imbaimadai in southwestern Guyana during a routine flight. The civil aviation authority and the military on Monday confirmed that the troops had reached the crash site in dense jungle and steep mountain ridges where the Air Services Limited plane went down in heavy rains and cloudy weather.

The expatriate pilot working in Guyana for more than a decade was the only person on board the aircraft as it flew on a short hop from one mining community to the next.

The military said in a statement that troops were forced to rappel down into the thick jungle to cut their way through 100-foot trees because it was too dangerous to do so from helicopters.

The aircraft is one of dozens in the domestic fleet serving the country’s vast interior and conducting flights to neighboring Brazil, Suriname, and the Caribbean.