LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

The Dakota ZS-DAK, ditched in churning seas off Umbogintwini on the Natal South Coast on Friday, was a gamblers’ special returning from Maseru in Lesotho. The 25 people on board the ill-fated twin-engine airliner were well-to-do people on a free Christmas treat at the casino as guests of the Holiday Inn. A woman passenger — Mrs Lora-Ann Berkow, 30, of La Lucia — was drowned in the surf after jumping from the floating aircraft. Mr Paul Ozard, a bookmaker and a North Coast sugar farmer, said there was little panic among the passengers when the pilot shouted he was going to ditch the plane. Mr Ozard said: “The landing was very smooth, as if we had touched down on an airfield. There was a jolt as we belly-flopped into the water. If the pilot, Captain John Winson, who was a senior pilot of VC10 jets for years, had not been so experienced, we would all have been dead.”— December 30 1973

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

The brutal killing of an Aids worker after she went public about being HIV-positive has unleashed a wave of outrage. Health worker Gugu Dlamini, 36, of KwaMancinza, near Durban, died after being assaulted by a mob who accused her of degrading her neighbourhood by disclosing she had the disease. In his Christmas message to the nation, on the day of Dlamini’s burial, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki singled out Aids as one of his greatest concerns for the future. “It’s a terrible story. We have to treat people who have HIV with care and support, not as if they have an illness that is evil.” — December 27 1998