As the world waits for more information on the missing Malaysian Airlines plane that plunged into a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, I remember the day when President Samora Machel of Mozambique died in a plane crash in October 1986.
On that day it was officially announced that Zambian airspace would be closed to international aviation but no details were given for the move.
But it emerged later that some Frontline Heads of State that included presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Samora Machel were holding a secret meeting at Kasaba Bay in a bid to persuade the Zairean government to stop the shipment of weapons of war, through its territory, to Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebels who were fighting President Eduardo dos Santos’ government in Luanda.
We were on duty that afternoon – it was around 15:30 hours, I think – when we heard the sound of an aircraft as it flew over Ndola on its way to Lusaka. A colleague, I think it was senior sub-editor Lawrence Kazenda who remarked that since the Zambian airspace had been closed to international traffic, that plane could only be transporting the presidents who had been meeting.
At around 18:30 hours as I was checking wire copy from international news agencies on the telex, I saw a “News Flash” by Reuters from London, announcing that the plane carrying Mozambican president Samora Machel from a meeting in Zambia had crashed in South African territory; he was feared to have died.
All of us in the Times of Zambia news room agreed that the South African regime was responsible; given the fact that top government officials, including Foreign Minister Roelof ‘Pik’ Botha and police commissioner general Johan Goetzee were the first at the scene of the crash and allegedly identified Machel’s body by his military cap.
The Mozambican president’s aircraft crashed some 200 metres inside South African territory, near the point west of Maputo where the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa meet. Later reports stated that the Soviet-built jet hit a hillside moments before it was expected to land at Maputo airport, and pilot error was initially thought to be the cause of the crash.
News of the president’s death was first publicly made known by South African president Pieter W. Botha on October 20 when he issued a statement expressing his “deep regret and profound shock”, describing Machel’s death as the loss of “an outstanding leader”.
The death of 34 of the 39 passengers and crew was later confirmed by one of the survivors being the Soviet flight engineer, whom authorities in Pretoria assumed was the pilot.
South African radio named 16 of the dead who had been identified by then, including Mozambican minister of transport and communication, Mr Alcantara Santos, deputy foreign minister Jose Carlos Lobo, Zambian ambassador to Mozambique, Mr Cox Sikumba, Mr Navesse, the Zairean ambassador, Mr Tokwaulu Batale, Lt Col Fernando Honwana, a senior presidential aide, Mss Yvette Amos, president Machel’s private secretary, and protocol director, Cangela de Mendoca.
President Machel was formally announced dead on Mozambique radio in the evening of October 20 by Frelimo political bureau member Marcelino dos Santos, but by this time the news that the president’s aircraft was missing, and that he was feared dead, had already reached Maputo, where people were mourning. The late leader’s body was flown back to Maputo by helicopter, and was given a state funeral on October 28.
Born in Gaza province in 1933, Machel had been Mozambique’s president since 1975 when the country gained its independence from Portugal. He had emerged leader of Frelimo in July 1969 after the assassination of its founder Eduardo Mondlane.
A 14-man commission of inquiry into the cause of the crash was announced by the Frelimo political bureau on October 22. In the meantime, delegations from Mozambique and the Soviet Union arrived in South Africa to arrange for the decoding of the aircraft’s flight recorders.
After negotiations with South Africa over the release of the ‘black box’ flight recorders into soviet hands, it was agreed that only one of the four should be sent to Moscow for expert analysis while the remaining three would be opened in neutral territory. So the contents of the three recorders were examined in Zurich, Switzerland, on November 24-26, 1986, by experts from South Africa, the Soviet Union and Mozambique, with assistance from Swiss technicians and International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) representatives.
Reacting to Machel’s death when he spoke at a summit of Frontline States, President Kenneth Kaunda declared that, “a number of our governments hold the South African government directly responsible for the tragedy until they prove the contrary”. He referred to ‘circumstantial evidence’ to support their belief, particularly the fact that the Tupolev aircraft was monitored on South African radar from take-off in Mpala until the time of the crash, and suggested the possibility that the ‘plane had been tampered with electronically in order to bring it off course’.
For his part, the foreign minister Mr Joaquim Chissano, who was later elected Machel’s successor, said ‘armed banditry and apartheid ‘were the main culprits of the incident.
Other observers suggested that pilot error was a probable cause; weather condition was also cited but weather conditions at the time of the fatal crash were said to not have been unfavourable.
Media houses in South Africa, the Cape Times in particular, highlighted the following factors:
The aircraft’s landing gear had been lowered in preparation for the descent to Maputo airport and the position of the aircraft impact suggested that the pilot had been expecting to land immediately‘
After impact, there was no fire, as was usually the case in aircraft crashes.
The presence of a radian beacon at Namakwa may have been mistaken by the pilot for that of Maputo.
The pilot may have confused the lights of Maputo with those of Komatipoort (in South Africa).
Pilots in nearby Swaziland claimed to have heard a radio conversation at about the time of the crash which would have indicated the pilot was off course; and the efficacy of the navigational aids at Maputo airport was ‘believed to be in doubt.’
Finally the South African authorities suggested that the aircraft’s radar equipment was possibly obsolete, and may have malfunctioned in the thunderstorm which was reported in the area on that night of the crash. The aircraft was reportedly manufactured in 1980 and claims of obsolescence were denied by Mozambican aviation experts.
Denying complicity in Machel’s death, foreign minister Pik Botha gave a detailed version of events, alleging, among other things, that ‘alcohol’ had been found in the blood of at least two Soviet crew members during autopsies.
Botha maintained that the Tupolev’s equipment was ‘dated and obsolete, and that the crew, in not adequately reading the instruments available to them, showed a ‘serious lack of professionalism’.
The South African foreign minister further claimed that aircraft was not equipped with an automatic ground proximity warning system, and the instruments showed that the jet was ‘locked-in’ to the Maputo radio beacon when in fact it was still 74 kilometres from Maputo, and the crew had been in verbal communication with the Maputo air traffic controllers.
However, despite these exculpatory assertions, I remember most people across the globe remained unconvinced.
They felt strongly that the South Africans could have ‘engineered’ the crash in the mistaken belief that a systematic ‘elimination’ of leaders like Samora Machel, would slow down or even halt the liberation war that was being waved by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress’ (ANC) Umkhonto Wesizwe operating from Mozambican territory.
And this kind of thinking could not be dismissed as far-fetched given the apartheid regime’s policy of ‘hot-pursuit’.
For instance, in 1985 – a year before Machel’s mysterious plane crash – South African commandos raided Gaborone, killing 14 people and injuring many others.
This was despite repeated assurances by President Quett Masire and his government that Botswana did not harbour any of the so-called terrorists.
Similarly, Rhodesian Selous Scouts also invaded Botswana and killed Batswana in Lesoma near Kasane.
The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and subsequent all-race elections four years later, did wonders to stabilise the southern African region where people of all races; and from all over the world, are now engaged in a new war against poverty and disease.
But be that as it may, little or nothing much, from what I can remember, seems to have been done to clarify the controversy surrounding Samora Machel’s death. Was he a victim of circumstances? Only time will tell.
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