Hansie crash report out in Feb

2003-12-08 13:44

Cape Town - The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Monday that the final report into the circumstances surrounding the plane crash which killed former cricket captain Hansie Cronje, and two pilots, would be released in February.

"The accident investigator received an external report just a week ago from the United States with regards the flux detector, and we are in the process of doing analysis," said KC Marobela, the CAA's manager of legal services who spoke on behalf of the communications section.

Marobela said the outstanding report had been received from the component's manufacturers, and would be incorporated into the final report which would be released for public consumption at the "end of January, early February".

The flux detector is a component found in the tip of an aircraft's wing, which picks up the magnetic field of the earth, acting like a magnetic compass and interpreting electrical signals into the instrumentation of the aircraft.

In August this year, the lead investigator - who was subsequently banned from speaking to the media as part of an internal CAA shake-up following a speculative article in a British newspaper insert quoting an unnamed source, who claimed that Cronje was in fact murdered to prevent him shedding more light onto the match-fixing scandal that prematurely ended his cricketing career - said that in terms of the instrumentation, the flux detector could be considered the "last piece of the puzzle".

"It is a complex investigation. We've already worked through the flight recorder and cockpit recorder - commonly known as the black boxes - as well as documentation relating to the pilots, such as licensing and medicals," said Dr Andre de Kock in August.

Former Proteas captain Cronje and the two pilots, Willie Meyer and Ian Noakes, died in June 2002 when their Hawker Siddeley 748 twin-engined turbo propeller aircraft crashed into Outeniqua mountains.

Cronje was one of the country's foremost cricket players before he fell from grace in 2000 when his involvement in an international betting scandal came to light.

- SAPA