/ 28 April 2006

Two SA pilots die in DRC plane crash

Two South African pilots were killed on Thursday when their plane crashed on approach to the town of Lubutu in the northern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Captains Andre Nel and Charles Greyvenstein died when the South African-registered Convair 580 aircraft they were piloting fell from the sky on approach to the Amisi airport at Lubutu.

Among the eight killed in the crash were two Congolese air crew and four Congolese passengers.

”There were no survivors. The plane slammed into the runway, the wings smashed and the entire aircraft caught fire,” the governor of the Maniema region, Koloso Sumaili, said after the accident.

Captain Johan Olivier, spokesperson for the owners of the plane, said it is difficult to establish what happened.

”There is no communication in that part of the DRC. We do not exactly what happened yet, there is no telephone reception in the area and we got the news via United Nations peacekeepers in the area,” he said.

He was flying from Kinshasa to Goma on Friday to try to establish what had happened and to arrange for the bodies to be flown back to South Africa.

The South African Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was waiting for permission on Friday from the DRC authorities to travel there to investigate the plane crash.

CAA spokesperson Phindiwe Gwebu said two CAA investigators were on standby to travel to the DRC to try to establish what had led to the accident.

”We have send communications to the DRC authorities, but are still waiting for their response,” she said.

Olivier said Nel’s two sons and Greyvenstein’s wife and three children were notified about the crash. The accident happened at about 2pm South African time on Thursday.

The pilots were flying cargo from Goma to Lubutu under contract for the Congolese Peace Airlines Company. — Sapa