FIVE private jets that were given permission to fly into Piarco International Airport on Saturday took back 62 non-Trinidad and Tobago nationals who were working on offshore rigs.
This according to National Security Minister Stuart Young at the virtual news conference on Monday morning. TT borders have been closed since March 23, 2020 in an effort to fight the spread of Covid-19.
He said there were discussions with the upstream companies to keep staff on the rigs longer than their usual rotation.
Young said the new crew members taking up the shift would be brought on a marine vessel and spend between 14 to 21 days quarantined onboard.
The national security minister said after shifts were completed, the old crew would have been taken back via ship to Chaguaramas and other areas and then transferred via sanitized buses to Piarco.
He said it was a “seamless exercise” with customs, immigration and civil aviation on chartered aircraft “to get them back where they needed to go.”
Young said no one was allowed to disembark the aircraft coming into TT.
“Mischief is afoot and there is a suggestion that we allowed aircraft, private aircraft, chartered planes to come in to bring certain people into TT.
“I say here without any fear of contradiction that is absolutely untrue, false and simply based completely in disinformation and on some occasions misinformation to achieve mischief.”
He said the French military was allowed overpass flights since they had dependencies such as French Suriname.
Young said the US Military was also granted permission to land in Trinidad with two aircraft and carry back military personnel from the US Embassy. He said they also took back Americans from South America.
