Pilots flew just too low
2010-02-04 07:15
Pretoria - Heavy fog and poor visibility probably caused the accident on Tuesday in which two experienced pilots flew into the top ridge of the Magaliesberg mountains and died.
The burnt bodies of Arnie Lowes, a director of Marshall Fowler in Randfontein and owner of a guesthouse in Umhlanga and Piet Kriel, a flight instructor from Krugersdorp, were lying on top of one another in the burnt-out cabin of the Cessna 206 when rescue workers reached the scene.
A few metres from where their plane hit the mountain lay the wreck of another plane that flew into the mountain about 20 years ago.
Lowes and Kriel had left the Jack Taylor airfield near Krugersdorp at about 06:00 to fly to Wonderboom airport north of Pretoria where the plane was to be serviced.
Heavy fog covered the Magaliesberg. The pilots probably became confused in the clouds and flew into the side of the mountain, only a few metres from the top.
From the bottom of the mountain it was possible to only see the tail-end of the plane.
Loud noise
Dawid Laas, who lives at the foot of the Magaliesberg in Kameeldrift West, west of Pretoria, said on Tuesday he heard a loud noise at about 06:25 followed by an explosion.
"I fly too and when I heard the impact I just knew: the mountain had caught him," said Laas.
He phoned his son Bennie, 16, who was heading to the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (Afrikaans High School for Boys).
Bennie made his mother turn around and go home "because I know the mountain like the back of my hand", he said.
Bennie, his sister Karlien, 19, and her boyfriend, André Pienaar, 21, ran up the mountain. Karlien, who is also a pilot, found a wheel and a piece of wreckage on the way up. Shortly afterwards, Bennie found the wreckage of the plane.
Bennie said he could see only flames once he saw the wreck.
He contacted his father and informed him of the plane's registration number and in the log book, which lay outside the plane, looked where the plane was coming from.
'No chance with this mountain'
"There was not much left (of the plane)," said Karlien.
"On the way up I still hoped they might be alive and that we could help them, but there was no-one who could be helped."
"You don't really stand a chance with this mountain."
The police air wing was called in to take up and bring back members of the Tshwane emergency services, officers from the Hercules police station and members of the search and rescue unit of the task force.
Lowes left his wife, Danita, and three children. It was not known by late on Wednesday night who Kriel's next of kin were.
An inquest will be held.