Transport Minister Dullah Omar said on Friday that no new evidence had emerged that would justify a new inquiry into the crash of the the Helderberg, off Mauritius, in 1987.
The SA Airways Boeing 747 plane crashed off the coast of Mauritius on November 28 that year, killing all 159 people on board. It was en route from Taipei in Taiwan to Johannesburg.
According to an official investigation into the crash, which still stands, the aircraft fell into the sea after a fire aboard.
The cause of the fire was never established.
”In the light of all the information, I come to the conclusion that to set up another commission of inquiry will be entirely futile in that there is no evidence, which can be placed before such an inquiry, which will throw a different light on the
Helderberg disaster,” Omar said.
An initial commission of inquiry into the disaster found that no-one was to blame, but in 1998 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was told that Armscor’s apartheid-era arms procurement was to blame. – Sapa