Friday’s plane accident in which a Mozambican plane crashed in the Bwabwata National Park, killing all 33 people on board, was the worst to have occurred in Namibia since 1968.
In that year, a flight scheduled from South Africa to London flew into the ground soon after take-off, after a scheduled stopover in Windhoek. Five passengers survived the crash and 123 died.
The investigation determined that the accident was due to pilot error.
Namibia will head an international investigation into Friday’s accident, described as one of the deadliest air crashes in Southern Africa in decades.
The accident on Friday is also the deadliest for Mozambique since a plane carrying then-president Samora Machel crashed in 1986 in South Africa on his way home from an African leaders’ summit.
The Mozambique Airlines flight crashed near the Muwyembo border post in the Bwabwata National Park on Friday, just before reaching its destination in Angola. All 27 passengers, including a baby, and six crewmembers were killed.
The remains of the victims started arriving at the Eros Airport in Windhoek yesterday morning, where they will be processed for identification.
“The aircraft was destroyed on impact. All people on board perished in this tragic occurrence,” said the Minister of Works of Transport, Erkki Nghimtina, at a press briefing yesterday.
He said the cause of the crash is not yet known but that the Directorate of Aircraft Accident Investigation has started investigating.
“Because the aircraft was in flight [when it crashed] there can be several possibilities that have to be investigated,” said the Director of Aircraft Accident Investigation in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Erickson Nengola.
Nengola said the investigation is being led by Namibia with help from civil aviation authorities from Mozambique, Angola, Brazil and the United States.
A preliminary report is anticipated within 30 days according to International Civil Aviation Organisation rules.
The government of Mozambique has established a second commission to examine the Civil Aviation Authority of Mozambique and the airline, Linhas Aereas de Mozambique (LAM).
The manufacturer, Embraer, and the airline have both sent teams to the accident scene.
Flight TM 470, bound for Angola, left Maputo on Friday at 11:26 but never reached its destination.
Aviation sources reported that according to radar data, the aircraft suddenly started to descend at about 5 000 feet per minute until it disappeared from the radar.
Radio contact was lost at the same time.
The aircraft investigation unit of Namibia had enlisted the help of a helicopter to find the missing aircraft. Unfortunately, due to heavy rain, the search operation had to be suspended on Friday and resumed on Saturday.
The aircraft was found crashed and burnt in the Bwabwata National Park east of Rundu on Saturday and no survivors were found.
Villagers in the Bwabwata National Park reported that the aircraft crashed in their area.
Police spokesperson Inspector, Stephan Nuuyi, said that police were dispatched from Divundu to investigate where the smoke was coming from.
“They were searching on foot following the smoke. Because of the rainy conditions the search was called off on Friday until the following morning.”
At about 09:00 Saturday pieces of the aircraft was found, which led to the main scene of the crash.
“Human remains were found. Pieces were scattered around,” said Nuuyi.
On Saturday, park rangers reported that both ‘black boxes’ (flight data and cockpit voice recorders) had been found and recovered by accident investigators.
The captain of the flight was a senior pilot with over 4 000 hours with LAM and also held an instructor rating. The first officer had about 1 000 flight hours with airlines in Mozambique. The captain had repeatedly flown the route.
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