Surviving members of the beloved Bahamian musical group Da Pond Band are speaking out about their friends and bandmates who were killed when a small plane operated by Flamingo Air crashed in the Bahamas on Friday, killing all 10 people on board.
Da Pond Band, known for their lively Caribbean music, and a popular DJ were all set to perform at an Independence Day celebration on Andros Island. A flight that typically takes under 20 minutes, the plane had left Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau and was en route to San Andros when it crashed in North Andros, the Bahamian Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority said.
Earlier in the day, Shenia Roberts, a vocalist for Da Pond Band, had already arrived on Andros Island and was waiting for the rest of the band to arrive. Roberts said five members of their group were killed in the crash.
“They were the people that I talked to in the morning, in the night,” Roberts told CBS News. “They were my friends, my confidants. And I was waiting on them.”
She said she flew in from Nassau on the same plane, flown by the same pilot, at around 7 a.m.
“You could tell it was an old plane,” Roberts said. ” But we didn’t have any issues.”
Bahamian investigators are looking into what led to the crash. Flamingo Air suspended all flights after two emergency incidents happened on the same day. Earlier in the day, the airline had a separate plane catch fire after landing in Nassau, according to Bahamian officials. There were no casualties in that incident.
“I’m still shocked that they’re gone. I can’t believe it,” said Shaniese Miller, another surviving band member. “They’re my family and I never expected that to happen.”
Miller was last with the band members who died the previous Friday at a weekly performance they host in Nassau.
“It’s the hottest spot, every Bahamian is there. International people fly over just to come to see Da Pond,” Miller told CBS News. “We were having so much fun, and after the second set, we were, they were just saying how they were so excited to go to Andros.”
The band members who died were identified by Da Pond Band as Giovanni McKenzie, Mateo Winder, Rashad Storr, Tonique Gilot and Travis Johnson. Melvin Henfield, also known as DJ Fresh, was also on the flight, according to the band.
The loss of these popular music figures has hit the entertainment industry in the Bahamas hard.
“They meant so much to so many people, this country is wrecked,” said Anishka Lewis, a popular Bahamian singer who often performed with Da Pond Band. “The last thing I said to them because we were in rehearsals till about 1 a.m. I told them, I say, listen, I love and appreciate y’all, man. Thank y’all for putting in the time and effort and energy into it, and I can’t wait to see y’all on Saturday.”
Three other passengers who were not performers were on the flight. Officials have not yet released their names.
Anasthasia Rolle told CBS News she believes her 16-year-old son, Nicholas Oliver Jr., is among those who were killed Friday. She said she believes he was added to the flight at the last minute.
Rolle said her son was excited to visit family and attend the festival. He was set to take a ferry earlier in the day with his father but they got there too late, she said. The father then went to the airport to see if he could get him on a plane.
He was set to arrive around 12:30 p.m., but as planes kept arriving in San Andros, Rolle couldn’t find her son. Hours passed.
“The question was, where is Nicholas? Did he disappear?” Rolle said. “As the time passed, I had to come to realization that my son was definitely on that plane.”
The pilot on the Flamingo Air flight waited on the tarmac to fill more seats for two hours after the plane was set to initially depart, according to Roberts, the vocalist for Da Pond Band, who said she was texting with McKenzie, one of the leaders of the band who died in the crash.
“He told me that they were getting ready to leave, I reached out and I asked him, so why are you taking so long? What happened? He said the pilot … He’s trying to find other people to fill the plane up,” Roberts told CBS News.
McKenzie wrote at 12:01 p.m. on Friday that the pilot was “waiting round for more people to full up the plane,” according to a screenshot of the text exchange on WhatsApp that was obtained by CBS News.
A Bahamian aviation source familiar with the matter told CBS News it can be a common practice in the Bahamas to wait until the plane is full before departing if the client is paying per seat, rather than chartering the entire plane.
The flight was supposed to be a charter flight exclusive to the performers for the festival, according to Roberts.
“That should have not been the situation, because it was a chartered plane,” Roberts said.
CBS News has reached out to Flamingo Air for comment.
When reached by phone, the owner of the airline told CBS News he had “no comment.”
The flight departed around 12:30 p.m., according to flight records. It crashed in a wooded area near the airport 18 minutes later.
