The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

RONELLA Hinsey’s final message from her 27-year-old son was one word: “Leaving.”

For years, Mateo Winder had followed a family ritual whenever he travelled. He told his mother when he was departing, then checked in after arriving safely.

But on Friday, as Winder boarded a plane for North Andros with fellow members of Da Pond Band, the message that once reassured his mother became his final farewell.

“His last words to me was, ‘leaving’, but I never thought it was leaving totally from this earth,” Ms Hinsey said.

Winder was among the ten people killed when a Flamingo Air aircraft crashed near San Andros Airport. He and other members of Da Pond Band were travelling to perform at a regatta.

As news of the crash spread, Ms Hinsey launched a desperate search for answers, repeatedly calling police stations, aviation officials, relatives and members of the band as she tried to determine whether her son had been aboard.

For a fleeting moment, she believed he had escaped the disaster after an aviation official checked a passenger manifest and told her his name was not listed.

“Okay, Lord, he’s not on it,” she recalled thinking.

That relief soon collapsed into dread as calls went unanswered and relatives near the crash site avoided telling her what had happened.

Ms Hinsey, a police inspector who had been stationed in Abaco for work, said her mother first called to tell her that a plane had crashed in Andros and that Winder may have been aboard.

She immediately sent her son a WhatsApp message asking him to confirm that he had landed safely.

The message did not go through.

“I called the police control room in Nassau to find out if they got any reports of any plane crash, and they said no,” she said. “So, I had to do a lot of calling.”

She contacted the Nicholls Town Police Station, where officers confirmed that a plane had crashed. She then called a pilot at General Aviation in New Providence and asked him to check whether her son’s name appeared on the manifest.

“He went and he checked with the manifest, and he said his name was not on it,” she said.

Still unable to reach her son, Ms Hinsey called her brother in Andros. He was in Blanket Sound and began travelling towards North Andros.

She continued calling the police control room but was told officers were still trying to gather information. She then contacted the Fresh Creek Police Station, where a cousin worked, and was told authorities were unsure who had been aboard.

Her brother eventually reached the area of the crash but was prevented from approaching the site.

Then he stopped answering her calls.

“After a few minutes, I said no one is calling me back or anything,” Ms Hinsey said. “I kept calling my brother, and he refused to answer, and after he refused to answer, I knew what happened because he didn’t want to tell me.”

She called the aviation official who had helped her check the manifest, but he also stopped answering. A call to one of Da Pond Band’s managers went unanswered as well.

“I said, ‘Lord, I know my son was on that plane’ because I kept calling and calling and I didn’t get any answer,” she said.

Ms Hinsey travelled from Abaco to New Providence after learning of the crash.

The grieving mother, who is also a gospel minister, said she had been troubled throughout the week by visions of her son being hurt.

“All that week, I just kept hearing or seeing something happening to my son and him being hurt, and he actually died,” she said. “I started praying and cancelling what I saw, and pleading the blood of Jesus over him and reading God’s word that he should not die but live to declare the works of the Lord.”

Despite the depth of her loss, Ms Hinsey said she has not questioned God.

“I didn’t ask the Lord why, because I don’t want to question God, because He knows why everything happens,” she said. “Human understanding, we won’t understand it.”

Instead, she prayed that her son’s death would carry meaning.

“I told the Lord, I said, if that is your will, you know everything before it happens,” she said. “And I said, if that is your will, then so be it. But I want my son’s death, I want him to get glory out of it. I don’t want him to die in vain.”

Winder, who was never married and had no children, built his life around his faith, family and music.

His mother described him as loving, deeply committed to Christ and extraordinarily gifted.

He performed with Da Pond Band and the Grammy Award-winning Baha Men and could play the drums, keyboard, guitar, bass guitar and saxophone. He could also sing.

Isaiah Taylor, leader of Baha Men, said Winder was like a son to him and had recently performed with the group in Milwaukee as its keyboard player.

“This is absolutely a big blow,” Mr Taylor said. “It’s a big, big, big blow to the industry.”

He described the artists killed in the crash as vibrant people and urged musicians to put safety ahead of opportunities to earn money performing at Family Island events.

“I will warn all of these musicians: do not be comfortable to jump on these charters to go to regatta to make a couple of dollars,” he said. “Safety comes first. Make sure know what you’re flying, who you’re flying with.”

“You got to make sure.”

Mr Taylor said he had long been fearful of flying on small charter aircraft. He said his last such flight was from New Providence to Andros in 1984 or 1985.

“The flight was good, but you couldn’t get me back on that plane because I was just paranoid of that plane, and I haven’t flown the charter since,” he said.

He also urged performers to consider the weight of their equipment when travelling on small aircraft.

“If you are doing it, don’t put no kind of equipment on the plane, the little plane that you’re flying on,” he said. “Because every piece of equipment that you would put on that plane also carries weight, and the plane can only lift with so much weight.”

Authorities have not said what caused the crash or indicated that the aircraft’s load played a role.

Music had gripped Winder almost from infancy.

“Mateo had started playing music from two and a half years old,” Ms Hinsey said. “He would get my comb and my brush, and he would be at the foot of my bed, and he’d be beating on it.”

Winder later channelled that talent into both performance and business, operating a rental company in New Providence that supplied musical instruments and entertainment equipment.

His mother said his warmth matched his musical ability.

“He was always smiling and if anybody had a bad day, he would come there and he would make you laugh,” she said.

For Ms Hinsey, the routine exchange before every journey had always carried an expectation: her son would leave, arrive and call home.

This time, the message came.

The return call never did.