John Buxton

I seem to recall that the TRC heard evidence about this in camera and their findings were not published in the final documents. The secrecy was allegedly to cover up (i) weapons material that shouldn’t be carried on civil aircraft (ii) the plane suffered an inflight fire quite soon after take-off and was suppressed by the onboard systems but the crew told to proceed rather than return – alas it re-ignited close to MRU (iii) without any evidence of foul-play (ie nothing dodgy on the manifest) the insurers coughed up plenty moolah which nobody wanted revisited. Nasty. Not sure the black boxes were recovered – some of the wreck was found.

Raymond Pillemer

Last week Saturday was the 22 nd anniversary of the “Helderberg “ disaster.
My wife and I lost our dear daughter Lauren Pillemer aged 23 in that crash. Our daughters body was one of the three that were recovered. Despite concerted efforts I was not able to obtain possession of any of the personal items that she had on her.
At the time of the crash all the relatives of the victims were treated by the then management of SAA as well as the courts in a disgusting manner. I refer to 2 individuals in particular, Gert V.d. Veer and Justice Margo as well as SAA’s legal team.
I myself devoted time and energy to try and find out what caused the crash as well as trying to ensure that all next of kin were treated with respect and fairness by SAA and the courts. Despite concerted efforts I was unable to achieve either of those goals.
Our lives changed after that accident and my wife and I together with our immediate family decided that we needed to leave South Africa and we emigrated to Canada. Our family had roots in South Africa since 1899.
In the 22 years since the crash SAA have never done anything on the anniversary of the crash. Not even as much as a letter. of condolence or for that matter an official apology. It’s absolutely disgusting !!
From a personal perspective my wife and I have never been to Mauritius. Just post crash we were offered a trip for a memorial service which we were unable to attend due to a religious holiday. At the time I requested that SAA offer us a trip at a later date and that as expected was also denied.
The present SAA management have chosen to ignore the Helderberg accident. That in itself is very hurtfull to all of the relatives who have suffered so much, year in year out.
In speaking for my own individual family, all we want from SAA is an official “We are responsible for the crash and are really sorry.” And at least show all the families some respect and on an annually acknowledge those who lost their lives.
Raymond Pillemer
Toronto Canada

Mandie Coetzee

I was a young girl when this happened, and I still think of it frequently, even though I knew nobody personal on that flight. It must be terrible to have had your parents or parent on that flight, and the way it is handled to this day, really makes me think it was a planned tragedy. WHO or WHAT or BOTH was on that plane, that did not fit in with the agenda for South Africa planned very much at that specific time on the drawing boards, that called for getting rid of it in such a tremendous way. Thank GOD I don’t have to live with THIS on my conscious.

Paul Ash

Hi Mandie,

I know what you mean. It’s one of those accidents that hangs over us like a cloud, mostly, I think because there has been no real closure for the families of the passengers and crew.

Georgina

Is there a list of the passengers published anywhere on the web? I think that a relative of mine named Roxburgh may have been on board.
Thank you.

Francois

There are lists on
http://www.withmaliceandforeth.....ments.html

However, the South African list is not complete as only about half of the 71 SA passengers are listed.

Dave

A comment on the mid-air explosion and subsequent break-up of the Helderberg 23 years ago, if it weren’t so horribly tragic, it would be a comedy of errors. Boeing had issues with the combi that apparently prevented deploying adequate fire fighting measures as well as a common cargo area/passenger area air circulation system that was great for moving corrosive and poisonous gases. Putting embargoed military related materials like plutomium and ammonium perchlorate on a passenger airline was an ERROR! I’d say a criminal error, you might want to talk to the US mil attache out of the PCR at the time as well as the SA mil attache, since they were both allegedly on the tarmac at loading. Re-activating Dawie Uys under threat to active status in the SAAF was another error and way too much pressure considering the mix of human and dangerous cargo, but I understand why he flew and the threats involved. Having the Chief of CI (and his wife), TB Osler and someone involved in the design and development of the False VOR beacon used in the Samora Machel crash on the same flight was another major error, it made the Helderberg just way too sweet a target, especially coupled with contraband materials to take down the Migs in Angola. But seriously, what a way to tie up lose ends, disgrace the NP and stop the weapons development programs for accelerated SAMS and the EMP Cannon. Not releasing the real CVR and FDR as well as all the ATC and other communications records was another major error. It diverted all investigations away from the truth and left only speculation, but that was the plan. Having Margo investigate the crash, another major ERROR! He was involved as an investigator or judge in the Dag Hammarskjold, Rietbok and Samora Machel crashes/assassinations, all the crashes had politcal target on board, political at least if the instigators of the crashes were involved with the UN, IMF/World Bank, ANC and the NP government.

My CO told me that “once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but three times is enemy action,” he was right and at four times, something is definitely deliberatly amiss. He also always told me to follow the money, find out who benefitted and 99% of the time, you’ll find who did the deed.

I suppose however, these were not errors for the people and corporations that wanted the ANC in power so that an easily corruptable government could be manipulated and levered to help rape and pillage the country, the plan for which came together finally and with public silence in 1989 and ended in the bought and paid for capitulation of deKlerk. It amazes me that traitors and murderers can be given the Nobel Peace prize, but then Obama got one too. They can keep the stupid torphy, plaque or title, just give me the money, the rest is an obscene joke. But we are in a worldview inversion, so now terrorists are heroes and the common law abiding citizen is a criminal, do we leave this new attitude sit or do we take a stand?

Regardless, some day the proof will come forward and the unadulterated truth will be made available. Until then, push on, secrets are like shadows in dark hole, you just need to shine a little light to see what those secrets really are and who pulls the invisible strings, but be aware, the rabbit hole goes deep.