A Toronto law firm has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of some of the passengers who were aboard a Fly Jamaica airliner that crash-landed in Guyana earlier this month.
The plane reported hydraulic failure shortly after it left Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Georgetown around 2 a.m. local time on Nov. 9.
The plane, which was transporting 120 passengers to Toronto Pearson International Airport, was forced to make an emergency landing.
Global Affairs Canada confirmed that 82 of the passengers were Canadian.
The airline said that the plane overran the runway and crashed into spiked rumble strips on the ground. Passengers had to exit the plane through an emergency slide.
Six people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
Many of the passengers were left stranded in Guyana for about a week while they waited for another flight to Toronto. According to local media reports, at least eight firefighters were arrested after the electronics of some Fly Jamaica airline passengers were stolen.
In a news release issued Friday, Rochon Genova LLP said the class action lawsuit hopes to seek compensation for passengers and their families who may have been harmed as a result of the incident.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday.
“Due to the severity of this crash landing and the ensuing emergency evacuation, passengers suffered many injuries and lost valuable belongings. One woman died after the crash,” the news release reads.
Eighty-six-year-old Rookia Kalloo, who was a passenger on the flight, was pronounced dead in Toronto on Nov. 16. The airline told CTV News Toronto that Kalloo was not one of the six passengers taken to the hospital with injuries after the crash-landing.
"A timely and fair resolution of this case is of critical importance to the victims and their families. Only a focused approach to this litigation, having regard to precisely what went wrong can achieve this result" said Joel Rochon, Managing Partner of Rochon Genova LLP, in the news release.
Airline passengers Invor Bedessee, Shanta Persaud, Harpreet Singh and Zakran Ally have been identified as representative plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
