Mystery still lingers over SAA Helderberg

AS THE waves of the Indian Ocean roll east of Mauritius, the Ackermann and Cockcroft families of Cape Town agonise yet again over the fateful events of November 28, 1987.

SAA Flight 295, the passenger jet Helderberg, flying non-stop from Taipei to Johannesburg on that date, suffered two disastrous fires during the flight which ultimately brought the aircraft down in the Indian Ocean, killing all 186 people on board.

When the distress call came for permission to divert the flight to some other available airport, it was refused for fear of the international furore which would follow the arrival there of a partially burnt-out SAA civilian airliner, with dozens of passengers having died of smoke-inhalation.

The cause of the crash? The theory is that an unstable component of jet fuel destined to assist the performance of South African fighter aircraft against Russian MIGs over Angola, ignited in Flight 295’s specially configured cabin. This contraband cargo started one or more of the fires, which ultimately became uncontrollable.

Flying such a cargo in a passenger airliner was a contravention of the Civilian Aviation Authority’s most stringent regulation. And so, Captain Dawie Uys, under dire threats from PW Botha and the SA government, was forced to fly his stricken aircraft on towards Mauritius and eternity.

There is little comfort today in the story’s bare outline for 90-year-old Iris Cockcroft of Rondebosch. Iris, mother of Gina Ackermann and grandmother of baby Samantha, lost both in the fireball which had been the SAA Helderberg.

Gina’s sister, Helen Ziegenhardt, holds onto the belief that some elderly or ill SAA or government official, for whom threats no longer carry much weight, might yet be prevailed on to tell exactly what happened on board Flight 295, this day 30 years ago.

For now, the bereaved families continue to wait in hope. Neil Veitch Kenilworth