Page 5 of 18

Helderberg 'bomb' could reopen case

PRETORIA - Transport Minister Dullah Omar would consider reopening the inquiry into the Helderberg aircraft disaster, his spokesman said yesterday after a report in South African newspaper Beeld that the aeroplane was carrying a nuclear bomb when it plunged into the sea off Mauritius in 1987.

The findings of the inquiry have never explained the crash and speculation that it was carrying a hazardous cargo have been rife. The hold of the Boeing 747, it has been claimed, could have contained a range of illegal items ranging from rocket fuel to fireworks to that elusive substance, red mercury. Red Mercury is proving to be a form of myth, we may never know what it really is, but after some research with various contacts in the military here in SA there is a strong possibility that it was Ammonium Perchlorate (a solid rocket fuel) destined for either Israel or the test facility in Bredasdorp,

Beeld yesterday released transcripts of the conversations which took place between the pilot and his crew minutes before the Jumbo jet went down.

According to what is believed to be a transcript of a technologically enhanced voice cockpit recording of the Helderberg, Captain Dawie Uys told some of his crew "Boy George" (apparently a code name for a nuclear bomb) was on board, Beeld reported.

Omar's spokesman Mike Mabasa said the minister had asked the Civil Aviation Authority to ascertain as soon as possible whether the transcript was authentic.

The Helderberg, a Boeing 747 Combi, crashed into the Indian Ocean about 160 km north-east of Mauritius on November 28, 1987, killing all 159 people on board. A three-year inquiry found that nobody was to blame for the crash.

In the transcript released by Beeld, Uys says: "There is a small secret that I think you men would like to know. There is a bomb on board."

Later in the conversation a voice asks who the bomb belongs to. The reply is: "It's state property."
- Sapa

http://www.namibian.com.na/Netstories/2000/May/Africa/008140FA69.html 

No new inquiry into
Helderberg disaster

Talk back:
Will the Helderberg mystery ever be solved?

ZA*NOW:
Ngcuka's office to head Helderberg probe May 29, 2000
'We murdered the Helderberg passengers' May 26, 2000
New Helderberg claims May 24, 2000
'New' Helderberg tape May 19, 2000
The Helderberg's 'deadly' cargo May 17, 2000
Background:
Robert Kirby on 'New' Helderberg tape May 19 2000
Helderberg and the search for invisible blame June 1998
Helderberg action group meets TRC May 1998

The Helderberg's "deadly" cargo

Johannesburg, South Africa. May 19 2000

'New' Helderberg tape This week's 'new revelations' about the Helderberg disaster appear to be a lot of hot air

The Helderberg crashed into the sea north-east of Mauritius in 1987, after a fire in its upper deck cargo hold. A total of 159 lives were lost. Of three on-board flight recorders (black boxes) the CVR was the only one recovered.

It is claimed that this new transcript includes nine minutes of flight-deck conversation previously deemed unintelligible. According to the new transcript, the captain of the airliner, Dawie Uys, informed his flight crew that the Helderberg was carrying "deadly cargo". Three minutes later a member of the crew expressed anger at not having previously been told of this.

An earlier transcript of the CVR was made in 1989 by an academic, Dr LPC Jansen, at the behest of the Margo commission of enquiry, which investigated the crash. This transcript was of the entire 30-minute CVR tape.

CVRs record flight-deck conversation, radio transmissions and other sounds on a continuous tape loop. At any stage the CVR has a recording of the preceding 30 minutes -- up until the device is disabled either by being switched off or destroyed in an accident. The Helderberg's CVR went on recording until, it is believed, the on-board fire melted the wiring leading to it -- a few minutes before the aircraft crashed.

The Afal transcript has Uys informing his crew of this "deadly cargo" eight minutes and 26 seconds into the CVR tape, shortly before descent would be made for Mauritius. At this point on Jansen's earlier transcript, the crew are chatting about a pretty girl.

The Jansen transcript has three short, unrelated comments at the point where the "enhanced" recording has a crew member complaining about not being told of the "deadly cargo". It has so far not been indicated at which point the remaining nine minutes occurred.

The driving energy behind the new investigation is a Neels van Wyk, a former SABC producer now living in the United States and who claims to have made special investigations into the Helderberg accident. Van Wyk is known also to have made similar claims relating to the Tupolev accident in Mozambique in 1986 in which president Samora Machel was killed.

Van Wyk entered the Helderberg lists in 1997 when, as an SABC producer, he was making a programme to mark the 10th anniversary of the crash. A reporter working under him first suggested that the chief director of the then Department of Civil Aviation had sent a diver down to the wreckage to change the CVR tape prior to recovery by the salvage team. (The wreckage was 4,5km beneath the surface.)

At the time Van Wyk also offered the use of specialised SABC equipment to try to re-interpret the CVR. To this end a copy was made at the SABC of the original tape.

The chief accident inspector in the three-year Helderberg investigation was Rennie van Zyl, who now works in Canada as an accident inspector for the International Civil Aviation Organisation. In response to enquiries made last month by David Leppard, an editor at the London Sunday Times, Van Zyl advises "a very cautious approach" in dealing with Van Wyk.

In his letter he says Van Wyk changed his story on several occasions, claiming that he had CIA contacts in the US who said the CIA had recordings of radio conversations between the Helderberg and its base station in Johannesburg.

Van Wyk also suggested that if South Africa's civil aviation authority would make the original CVR tape available to him, he had contacts in the US who would erase the last 30 minutes and thereby give access to the previous 30 minutes. (There can be no "previous 30 minutes" on a CVR tape.)

RELATED ARTICLES

Helderberg and the search for invisible blame June 1998 Helderberg action group meets TRC May 1998

TALK TO US

What do you think? Have your say Mail the editor

Van Zyl says that in 1998, while still with the South African aviation authorities, he received an e-mail from Van Wyk asking for $500 000 to have someone in the US transcribe the tape.

Asked for comment on the contradictions between the two transcripts, Van Wyk said that the Jansen transcript is "not worth the paper it is written on ... He [Jansen] did what he could under the circumstances but he was forced to speed up his work because of the impending inquest [sic], and because of the poor audio quality he wrote what he thought he heard."

Van Wyk is calling for a reopening of the enquiry into the Helderberg accident. In his words: "The enhanced CVR will blow the whole case open and will bring to book those who gambled with lives of innocent passengers." It is unclear whether or how Van Wyk contacted Afal.

Asked for comment on the new transcript Van Zyl said he could not authenticate it as he believed that with digital technology people could "be made to say anything".

Van Wyk dismisses this comment as being "beneath contempt". When asked for a copy of the new transcript, Van Wyk said such a copy could be "negotiated" with a London television producer, Richard Price.

Contacted by telephone, Price said that a figure of R250 000 would be appropriate for world rights to the transcript. Speaking as both Van Wyk's friend and agent, he said Van Wyk deserved some recompense for the considerable effort and expenses of his private investigation.

Asked whether copyright on the CVR recording would not in fact reside with South African Airways, the owners of the equipment which originally recorded it, Price said that "secondary copyright" would apply.

Told that a local television programme (Carte Blanche) had acquired a recording of the "enhanced" tape, Price said that no one could legally have acquired such a copy.

Carte Blanche director George Mazarakis confirmed they will not be broadcasting a copy of the tape as it has been found to be "completely indecipherable" by his own and several other audio specialists.

Van Wyk claims that the new transcript also reveals verbal evidence confirming the theory that there had been an earlier fire on board the aircraft. He gives no further details.

It is said that the new transcript has the flight crew talking about a nuclear bomb on board and has been described as "pretty phantasmagorical".

Van Wyk is calling for the release by South African authorities of the primary CVR tape, recovered from the Helderberg wreckage. A similar request was made last year to the then minister of transport, Mac Maharaj, who denied it.

The commissioner of civil aviation, Trevor Abrahams, confirms that he has both a recording and a transcript of the Afal version of the flight-deck conversation. He says that the necessary verification procedures will first have to be undertaken before any recommendations can be made on the possible reopening of the enquiry. Abrahams says these will "take a little time".

Asked for his opinion, a senior SAA 747 captain dismissed the idea that Uys or any captain would have kept secret from his crew any knowledge of hazardous cargo on board. "In the unlikely event that, in the first place, he would have agreed to accept such cargo, he would have had someone go into that hold every 15 minutes throughout the flight to see that the cargo wasn't posing any danger."

On the theory of a serious fire earlier in the flight, internationally agreed airline operating procedures would have stipulated the quickest possible termination of the flight.

The aircraft would have landed at the nearest airport, regardless of whatever embarrassment its cargo might have caused to the South African government.

-- The Mail & Guardian, May 19 2000.