http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20000524205214279M643549 

By Troye Lund

New evidence has given surviving relatives hope of finding out the truth about the end of the ill-fated Helderberg which plunged to a fiery end in the ocean killing all 159 on board.

But other families have resigned themselves to the fact that the truth will never be revealed.

Peter and Loretta Hayward have kept their daughter's room exactly as it was 13 years ago when she plunged to her death on Flight 295 from Taiwan.

Lynette Hayward's nail-polish bottles are still neatly lined up on her desk. A pile of faded, stuffed toys lie quietly under a poster of James Dean.

"You raise her for 22 years. You have expectations. You're getting old and imagine her career and look forward to grandchildren. All that was taken away from us," said Hayward, who received R40 000 from SAA as compensation.

"I never desired to get rich out of my daughter's death ... But they told us we could take it or leave it. It was damned unfair, but I have made peace with it now," he said. He does not believe the truth will ever come out.

He keeps in close contact with Jenny Smith and others who lost family in the tragedy and who are planning to start a civil suit against SAA.

Smith, a mother of two boys, lost her husband, Meiring Smith.

"Nothing is going to bring our loved ones back, but we deserve the truth. The question is how many times were planes full of passengers used to carry contraband into South Africa?" said Smith, who is one of three families who brought legal proceedings against Boeing and got paid out.

"I refused to sign that document that SAA gave people, making them waive their right to sue in return for derisory compensation."

Jenny Baldwin, sister of Helderberg co-pilot Geoffrey Birchall, said: "I can understand why the previous government wanted to cover it all up, but I can't understand why the present government has done the same.

"We are hoping this time it will not be so easy to sweep everything under the carpet."

By Troye Lund

South African Airways could be in for about R2-billion in claims should a new investigation into the 1987 Helderberg crash prove to have been a cover-up.

Aside from the R350-million that insurance company Lloyd's of London paid SAA, the 159 families who lost relatives are also expected to institute claims.

Calls to have the inquiry into the disaster re-opened have been prompted by new evidence, which alleges that the aircraft was carrying a nuclear bomb and that the initial R2-million Judge Cecil Margo investigation was a cover-up.

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

Lloyds of London was not available for comment and SAA said all new evidence had to be passed on to the Civil Aviation Authority.

While the aviation authority has expressed reservations about the authenticity of the tape, Dr David Klatzow, a leading forensic expert who has been investigating the Helderberg tragedy for Boeing for more than a decade, has dismissed as the new evidence as "unreliable".

But Klatzow is adamant the inquiry must be re-opened and that it should not be conducted by the aviation authority without being overseen, because it conducted the first inquiry into the crash.

"The investigation by the aviation authority points either to stunning incompetence or a cover-up of Olympian proportions," he said.

He had estimated that claims from families and from Lloyd's could be about R2-billion if SAA was found liable.

"Without these new tapes, which have not been verified and which should be taken with a huge dose of scepticism, there is more than enough evidence to re-open the investigation.

"That plane was carrying ammonia perchloride, a compound used to make rocket fuel," said Klatzow.

He called on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to release the transcripts of a closed session where former SAA and Armscor officials were cross-examined by him.

Truth Commission chief executive officer Martin Coetzee said the evidence would remain confidential until a formal request had been made for the evidence to be made public.

"Once such a request has been made, the commission will evaluate the situation and make a decision," said Coetzee.

With a view to re-opening the case, Transport Minister Dullah Omar has asked the Civil Aviation Authority to verify as soon as possible whether new information emerging around the Helderberg crash is "authentic and accurate".

It wasn't an atom bomb that sent the Helderberg plummeting into the Indian Ocean in November 1987, killing all 159 on board - although SA Airways is guilty of illegally carrying weapons aboard passenger planes, it emerged on Tuesday.

Experts on both sides of the Helderberg debate agreed if the disaster had been the result of a nuclear explosion, as suggested in transcripts of a conversation said to have been held between Helderberg crew members, there would have been no wreckage for salvage crews to recover.

Meanwhile, SAA refused to confirm or deny evidence from the 1998 in-camera Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing into the disaster, that it used passenger planes to transport military equipment.

Former truth commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza, who presided over the TRC hearing, confirmed an SAA pilot had told the TRC of at least one incident in 1985 when rockets and rocket launchers were loaded into the cargo hold of his plane on a flight from Tel Aviv to Johannesburg.

Ntsebeza said the TRC had been given sufficient evidence during the hearing to warrant a fresh investigation into the Helderberg disaster.

"There are so many unanswered questions about the crash and the Margo commission that investigated it," said Ntsebeza.

"In our final report we recommend that the government reopen the inquiry."

The TRC heard testimony of witness intimidation, tampering with evidence and failure to follow regulations during the inquiry led by Judge Cecil Margo, which concluded that no one was to blame for the crash.

Meanwhile, the transcripts have been greeted with widespread scepticism. The transcripts are said to refer to a conversation where Helderberg pilot Dawie Uys tells his co-pilot that "Boy George" - an apparent reference to a nuclear bomb - was aboard the aircraft.

The head of the Civil Aviation Authority, Trevor Abrahams, said on Tuesday an atomic bomb on board the plane was "not feasible".

"If there had been a nuclear explosion, we would all know about it," said Abrahams. "Nuclear bombs don't burn, they explode, yet we know from the forensic evidence that the Helderberg crashed because of a fire on board."

He said he had contacted the private laboratory in the United States responsible for "technically enhancing" the tape and producing the transcript.

"I have got the master copy of that tape sitting in my cupboard and let me tell you it is just noise," he said.

"The first step in authenticating the transcript is to compare our noise with their noise and see if they are from the same source," he said.

Leading forensic expert David Klatzow, who has investigated the Helderberg crash for several years and testified before the TRC, also dismissed the nuclear claims.

"We have to ask why the government seems determined to keep this quiet," he said.

"We know that SAA will be liable for a lot of money to compensate victims' families and will have to repay the insurance to Lloyds - worth about R1-billion by now - if it turns out the crash was no accident."

Transport Minister Dullah Omar said on Tuesday if fresh evidence into the cause of the Helderberg crash was discovered the inquiry would be reopened - echoing what he said after the TRC hearing.

http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20000523212207677H436113 

By Matthew Burbidge

The Civil Aviation Authority would need to evaluate the recording in which flight crew discuss a bomb on board the doomed Helderberg before launching an investigation.

It was reported on Tuesday in Beeld, a Johannesburg daily, that the Helderberg was carrying a "nuclear bomb" on board.

The newspaper published a full transcript of a conversation recorded in the cockpit between crew members. In this conversation, Captain Dawie Uys told a crew member that "Boy George is on board".

Most of the recording was previously inaudible, but had been retrieved through electronic enhancement.

Beeld claims "Boy George" are codewords for a nuclear bomb - a reference to Little Boy, the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Uys then says: "There is a small secret that I think you men would like to know. There is a bomb on board."

They also refer to the bomb as belonging to the state.

Trevor Abrahams, chief executive officer of the Civil Aviation Authority, said they were still "evaluating" evidence, and would then decide on further investigation.

Abrahams said he doubted the authenticity of the tape, saying it contained, at best, allegations. "The tape is inaudible at the best of times and has not yet been authenticated.

"In the audio copy, there are phrases broken up and repeated. It's not sequenced."

Abrahams said he believed a sound engineer had spent a month preparing a transcript of the tape, but you "can't take a transcript at face value".

Abrahams questioned the ethics of Neels van Wyk, who supplied the transcript to Beeld and, according to Abrahams, was now asking R250 000 in compensation.

"It's a bit worrying - the commercialisation."

Dr David Klatzow, a forensic consultant, said there was nothing to support the claim the plane was carrying a nuclear payload. "Boy George could have been a code name for whatever they were carrying."

http://www.iol.co.za/html/frame_news.php?click_id=13&art_id=ct20000524093731767H4362774