Experts believe the light aircraft that crashed in the southern Drakensberg should not have been flying at all, the Witness reported on Thursday.
Its website said the flight was postponed on Monday because of bad weather. It was not safe to fly on Tuesday either, experts told the newspaper.
The wreckage of the plane was found on rocks 8 000 feet above sea level.
The pilot, Raymond Gleimus, his mother Yvonne Smith and a passenger, Johan Nel, were found dead in the mountains after their aircraft crashed near Underberg, KwaZulu-Natal.
They were flying back to Bloemfontein from Durban. Gleimus, a businessman and keen pilot, had flown two employees of his aircraft maintenance business to Durban on Monday to attend a course.
He dropped off his friend and business partner, Hentie Kruger, in Bethlehem and picked up Nel there.
Smith, who had visited her brother in Pietermaritzburg, was also on the plane for the return flight on Tuesday.
It took off from Cato Ridge on Tuesday at 12.23pm and should have landed at Tempe in Bloemfontein by 2pm.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Zandra Hechter said the wreckage was found near Rhino’s Peak in the southern Drakensberg at around 8am on Wednesday.
Nel is survived by his attorney wife Marlien and daughter Leré. Marlien is about eight months’ pregnant with their second child.
Gleimus, winner of the 2003 President’s Cup Air Race and an experienced pilot, was not married. – Sapa