A passenger in a two-seater Tiger Moth died and its pilot was critically injured when the plane crashed into a truck, a taxi and a car on the old Vereeniging Road, south of Johannesburg, on Wednesday, said emergency workers.
The taxi driver also died and 22 people were injured in the crash in Ennerdale at 4.45pm, said Johannesburg emergency services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini said the light aircraft was thought to have taken off from a smallholding in Eikenhof. ”We don’t know yet what was the cause [of the crash],” he said. The plane had been ”totally, totally” destroyed.
Civil Aviation Authority investigators were still on the scene by 8.30pm.
Most of the injured were believed to have been passengers in the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter taxi, said Dlamini. It was carrying 40 security guards to work at the time of the crash.
Midgley said the driver of the truck was critically injured and had been airlifted by helicopter to the Union Hospital, in Alberton.
A Mercedes-Benz sedan was also involved, but it was not known how many of the injured were from this vehicle, he said.
Dlamini said the names of the dead were being withheld until their next-of-kin had been notified. — Sapa