A Ukrainian aircraft detained at Piarco International Airport after undeclared explosives were found on board has been cleared to leave Trinidad and Tobago.
A Ukrain-ian air-craft de-tained at the Pi-ar-co In-ter-na-tion-al Air-port af-ter au-thor-i-ties dis-cov-ered un-de-clared ex-plo-sives on-board has been cleared to leave Trinidad and To-ba-go fol-low-ing a mul-ti-agency in-ves-ti-ga-tion.. In a me-dia re-lease is-sued to-day, the Air-ports Au-thor-i-ty of Trinidad and To-ba-go said Flight No.. CVK-7078 ar-rived from the Ba-hamas yes-ter-day for a tech-ni-cal re-fu-elling stop.. The air-craft was re-port-ed-ly en route to Cape Verde be-fore con-tin-u-ing to Libya.. The Au-thor-i-ty said Im-mi-gra-tion Di-vi-sion of-fi-cers dis-cov-ered the
air-craft was trans-port-ing ex-plo-sives that had not been de-clared in keep-ing with es-tab-lished in-ter-na-tion-al avi-a-tion and se-cu-ri-ty pro-to-cols.. As a re-sult, au-thor-i-ties de-tained the air-craft and its Ukrain-ian crew while sev-er-al na-tion-al and in-ter-na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty and law en-force-ment agen-cies car-ried out in-ves-ti-ga-tions.. The agen-cies in-volved in-clud-ed the Cus-toms and Ex-cise Di-vi-sion, Air-ports Au-thor-i-ty Po-lice Force, Spe-cial Branch, AIR-COP, Unit-ed States Bor-der In-ves-ti-ga-tors and oth-er na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty stake-hold-ers.. Ac-cord-ing to the re-lease, in-ves-ti-ga-tors sought to de-ter-mine
whether all re-quired pro-ce-dures and reg-u-la-to-ry oblig-a-tions had been fol-lowed in re-la-tion to the trans-porta-tion and de-c-la-ra-tion of the car-go.. Fol-low-ing what the Au-thor-i-ty de-scribed as ex-ten-sive en-quiries and as-sess-ments, in-ves-ti-ga-tors de-ter-mined that no li-a-bil-i-ty should be at-trib-uted to the pi-lot or crew.. The Air-ports Au-thor-i-ty said per-mis-sion was sub-se-quent-ly grant-ed for the air-craft and crew to de-part Trinidad and To-ba-go.. The Au-thor-i-ty added that it re-mains com-mit-ted to work-ing close-ly with na-tion-al se-cu-ri-ty agen-cies
and oth-er stake-hold-ers to en-sure the con-tin-ued safe-ty, se-cu-ri-ty and in-tegri-ty of op-er-a-tions at both the Pi-ar-co and ANR Robin-son In-ter-na-tion-al Air-ports.
Ukrainian aircraft, Piarco International Airport, aviation security, explosives probe, Trinidad and Tobago, flight clearance