SA executive on doomed plane
2009-06-02 11:45
Johannesburg - A South African executive appears to be among the 228 people on board the missing Air France flight.
Erich Heine was an executive on the board of German company, ThyssenKrupp Steel. He was a passenger on the Air France AF 447 flight, a company source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because a passenger list has not yet been made public.
The Airbus A330 disappeared after it flew into a storm on Monday, four hours into its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
There is very little hope of survivors from what appears to be one of the worst air accident in over a decade, and the worst loss of life in Air France's history, AFP reported.
Heine was chairperson of Companhia Siderurgica do Atlantico (CSA), a $6.4bn joint venture between ThyssenKrupp and Brazilian mining company Vale, which is set to start production in December.
Career
According to Thyssenkrupp Steel's website, Heine was born on August 1, 1967 in South Africa, and began his professional career at Iscor in 1991, after graduating from the University of Pretoria as a mechanical engineer. While working for the South African steel company, he graduated with a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Potchefstroom.
He continued working in several operations positions at Iscor until 1999 when he joined BHP as marketing manager. In 2000, he rejoined Iscor as general manager of the Newcastle site. In 2001 he completed the executive programme at Darden Business School, University of Virginia, USA.
After the change from Iscor to Mittal Steel South Africa in 2004, he was appointed as general manager of the Vanderbijlpark site - the main site and head office of Mittal Steel South Africa.
On February 1 2006, the father of three was appointed to the executive board of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG, where he was responsible for the steelmaking business unit of ThyssenKrupp Steel.
‘Best leader’
A former colleague at Mittal Steel who was mentored by Heine remembered him as a wonderful man.
"Erich is probably the best leader and human being that I ever had the privilege to know and work with," he said in an e-mail to colleagues.
It is not clear if Heine was living in South Africa or Germany since he started working for ThyssenKrupp Steel.
Authorities were still investigating the cause of the plane's disappearance on Tuesday. The passengers included 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby. There were 12 French crew members while the passengers came from 32 countries, including 61 from France, 58 from Brazil and 26 from Germany, according to AFP.
