Disgraced former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje could have been murdered to keep him quiet and not, as first thought, the innocent victim of a plane crash, it was claimed in London on Sunday.
Cronje died along with the two pilots when the cargo plane he was travelling in crashed on May 30 2002.
However, an investigator for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) into the tragedy claims some police officers believe Cronje was victim of foul play so he would not reveal any more details on the match fixing scandal that brought a dramatic end to his career as South Africa’s most successful captain.
”A lot of people wanted Cronje dead,” one investigator close to the case told the Observer Sports Monthly.
”They feared he would one day tell the full truth, and then many more would be implicated. I know people who have looked closely into what happened but who were warned off by threatening phone calls.
”They’re scared of getting a bullet in the head. I understand that police have found evidence of sabotage, but they’re reluctant to go public on this.
”The full cost of a follow-up investigation would be too great in a country that is already riven by crime. It suits the police to have a closed case.”
Cronje was known to have an arrangement where he travelled for free on AirQuarius rather than take up the offer from the company he worked for to take a commercial flight back to his wife in George, some 430km from Cape Town.
”Our crew stayed at his house — we rented it from him,” the airline’s chief executive Gavin Branson told the Observer.
”The pilots used to play golf with Hansie at Fancourt (the estate he lived on). Hansie didn’t pay to fly with us — that route was not a revenue-paying one for us as far as passengers were concerned.”
According to his former secretary, Cronje appeared ill at ease after returning to the office from a business trip to Swaziland and as a result of stopping off in the office missed the chartered flight he had booked.
”When he missed the flight, it was cold and hailing in Jo’burg,” said Pam Jooste.
”It was late in the afternoon; most of the staff had gone home. It was freezing cold outside and Hansie asked whether anyone wanted coffee. He seemed anxious, a little uneasy.”
Branson said that he had always been bemused that the plane had come down in relatively clement weather when his planes had successfully flown in much worse conditions.
”There are a lot of unknowns about what happened. I think it will be a long time before the Civil Aviation Authority report comes out.
”I have a million questions that I haven’t even started asking yet. We’d been flying that route daily and in far worse weather without experiencing even a hint of trouble.”
Meanwhile, the CAA said it was putting together the ”last pieces of the puzzle” around the air crash.
The CAA’s lead investigator into the crash said that the last instrumentation component of the Hawker Siddeley 748 twin-engined turbo propeller aircraft needed to help conclude the investigation, will be sent to the United States on Monday for testing.
”The flux detector, which is a component found in the tip of the wing, picks up the magnetic field of the earth. It acts like a magnetic compass and interprets electrical signals into the instrumentation of the aircraft,” said Dr Andre de Kock.
He said the flux detector formed an ”important” part of the indications in the flight instrumentation panel of the aircraft, before its fatal last moments.
De Kock said all the other instrumentation, such as the components indicating artificial horizon, flight direction and landing, had been sent to their manufacturers, Honeywell, in the US.
”They have analysed the information and sent me a report. The flux detector is manufactured by Collins Systems and that’s why it must be sent to them for analysis,” he said.
De Kock said in terms of the instrumentation, the flux detector could be considered the ”last piece of the puzzle”, but added that with every new piece added, more questions were raised.
He said that a large part of the accident report had been compiled, and once all the information was received, the CAA would start ”finalising” the report.
”It is a complex investigation. We’ve already worked through the flight recorder and cockpit recorder — commonly known as the black boxes — as well as documentation relating to the pilots, such as licensing and medicals.”
De Kock did not want to commit the accident investigation team to a final date or time frame for the inquiry to run its course.
”Once the final report is compiled it becomes a public document. (However) It must first go to the CAA’s internal accident review committee and then to the sub-board committee: accidents for clearance.
It then gets released by the commissioner of civil aviation, Trevor Abrahams.”
He said the investigation was not fast-tracked because of Cronje’s involvement, but was treated with the ”same attention and importance as any other accident”. – Sapa, Sapa-AFP