On 28 Nov. 1952, for the first time, a commercial aircraft – a PBY Catalina – landed on the runway of what is now the Owen Roberts International Airport. On Monday morning, exactly 70 years later, a PBY Catalina from Eugene, Oregon, touched down after a journey that involved 30 hours in the sky, over five days.
The plane, built in 1943, did a fly-by in front of assembled guests at the airport Monday before taxiing to a halt near the terminal, when the guests, including Governor Martyn Roper, got a chance to climb aboard and see the interior of the vintage aircraft.
The Catalina, owned by Coy Pfaff, executive director of Soaring by the Sea Foundation, is identical to the one that landed on the runway in 1952, bringing passengers to what was still referred to at the time as “the islands that time forgot”, before the tourism and financial services industries began to boom.
Governor Roper, in a brief speech Monday, said the 70th anniversary of that 1952 landing was a “moment of real pride, but also one of reflection on how far we have come since those early pioneering days”.
He lauded Wing Commander Owen Roberts, who flew during World War II with the Royal Air Force, after whom Grand Cayman’s airport is named. Roberts, after retiring from the RAF, established Caribbean International Airways which, by 1950, was running weekly flights between Grand Cayman and both Tampa and Kingston.
As Cayman did not yet have an airstrip, passengers were flown in on PBY Catalina seaplanes or ‘flying boats’, which landed in the North Sound. The passengers were then ferried by a motor launch to a small wooden jetty with a thatch palm roof, where they cleared immigration.
“Roberts realised, however, that if travel between Cayman and regional destinations was to increase, we would need a proper airstrip,” Roper said. “He lobbied Cayman Islands commissioners [the former name for governors] at the time Ivor Smith and Andrew Gerrard to build airfields on all three of the Cayman Islands.”
He added, “I’m not sure what government finances were like back in the early ’50s – certainly not as healthy as they are now – but in a testament to his tenacity, in 1952, construction started on an official airstrip.”
The governor pointed out that the original estimated costs for the three airports was £93,000 (CI$92,800). Ultimately, the 5,000 foot-long runway and the terminal building on Grand Cayman ended up costing more than £100,000, he said. “Even back then, cost overruns were a feature of government projects,” he joked.
Adjusting for inflation, £93,000 in 1952 is equivalent to about £3.8 million today.
Airports were considerably cheaper to build back them. The most recent expansion of the airport – involving the construction of a new terminal and strengthening of the runway, among other work – had been estimated in a 2014 outline business case to cost $51.9 million, but ultimately was completed in 2019 for around $74 million.
Owen Roberts’ legacy
On 28 Nov. 1952, instead of landing in the North Sound, a PBY Catalina, piloted by Roberts himself, landed on the partially completed runway nearby.
Five months later, Roberts was killed when the Caribbean International Airways flight from Kingston to Grand Cayman that he was flying crashed on takeoff at Palisadoes Airport. Twelve others also died in the crash.
The airport was subsequently named in his honour “in recognition of his pioneering work to put aviation firmly on Cayman’s map”, the governor said.
Roper read out a message from Roberts’ grandson, John Crichton, the seventh Earl of Erne in Northern Ireland, whom, he said, had contacted the Governor’s Office about travelling to Cayman for the commemoration, but was unable to do so. “It is with great sadness that I cannot be with all of you today for this very special 70th commemoration of my grandfather Wing Commander Owen Roberts and all his achievements,” the earl wrote.
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan said Cayman was indebted to commissioners Smith and Gerrard as well as Roberts “because if they didn’t have that vision to develop [the aviation industy in Cayman], certainly we wouldn’t be here today”.
He added, “Today, we are here celebrating 70 years of hard, hard work and true development of our society in our country.”
The 70th anniversary of the landing of the Catalina comes less than a week before the Cayman Islands Air Show begins after a hiatus of two decades. The PBY Catalina will be among the aircraft on display at the show.
On Saturday, an aerial display will take place over Seven Mile Public Beach from 10am until 1pm, followed by an aircraft exhibit at the Island Air hangar at the Owen Roberts International Airport from 3pm to 6pm.
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