It was a Wednesday that will live in my memory all my days. 26 May 1971. I was chief sub-editor of the Natal Mercury in Durban, responsible for getting the paper ready for the press. I arrived at work to learn that three military jets had crashed into Table Mountain.
Eleven senior officers of the South African Air Force had been killed.
It was undoubtedly the worst multi-aircraft disaster in the peacetime aviation history of South Africa. I was told to stand by for stories and photographs from the Cape Times.
Those were the days before computers and desk top publishing and scanning of pictures. The type had to be set in lead -hot-type we called it- and the photographs, or blocks, were etched with acid into metal. They were processes that took time, so deadlines had to be strictly adhered to if the first editions were to catch trains and connections for country distribution. We had a few minutes' latitude with the second edition, which was for street sale and surburban deliveries, but the first edition had to be off my desk by midnight.
As the evening wore on we got the early pages out of the way and began the front page after eleven o'clock. The reporters of the Cape Times were thoroughly professional, and the telex machines had rattled furiously all evening as their stories came over the wires. But there was a delay with the photographs. The later it got, the more anxious I became. I could not hold back the front page, so making up went ahead, with a large space left on the page for a picture. Several telephone calls were made to Cape Town to find out when the pictures would be coming through, but all I got were assurances that they would be sent as soon as they had been cleared by the authorities.
As the landline pictures still had to be developed after they had been received, a messenger was standing by in the receiving room to run the canisters to the photographic department, where darkroom assistants were also waiting.
As the clock ticked rentlessly towards midnight, my anxieties grew. Fifteen minutes to go...ten minutes...five minutes...Even if the landline machines began receiving now, the picture that was being run would not be received in time for the edition. And there was still the hole on the front page to fill!
I looked up at the wall clock again; and then it caught my eye. There on the wall next to the clock was a large insurance company calender with a beautiful picture of that side of Table Mountain where the crash had occurred.
I snatched the telephone from its cradle and asked the girl on the switchboard to get me the Cape Times again.
While the call was coming through, I told someone to bring me the calender.
Cape Town was on the line. "Sorry about the pictures. They have been released and they will be running within seconds," I was told.
"Never mind. I've got a calender with a picture of Table Mountain showing the Rhodes Memorial and the inland side of the mountain. If you can give me an X-marks-the-spot I can use it." I said.
The same calender was hanging in the Cape Times newsroom! Over the telephone we were able to pinpoint the site of the crash; and the first edition went to press with that picture as our only illustration.
Two hours later dramatic photographs had been received, and the second edition went to press with a new page one. But our calender picture showed so well where on the mountain the crash had happened that it was retained on an inside page for the later edition.
The three jets were a variation of the Hawker Siddeley 125, a twin-engined executive transport jet. They were the VIP flight of the South African Air Force. The SAAF called them Mercurius, but they were the ninth version of the HS-125, which first flew in 1962. They had a crew of two and, depending on their configuration, could take from seven to twelve passengers in airline seating. The cabins were pressurised and the cabins were fitted with drop-out oxygen masks and toilets.
They were technically still on the secret list, to be shown to the public for the first time at the tenth Republic Festival celebration flypast on 31 May. On the day of the crash they were taking part in a rehearsal.
Eye-witnesses saw the three jets fly over the saluting dais and then do a right-hand sweep that took them into the clouds. Soon afterwards there was a great explosion as all three crashed into Devils Peak above the Rhodes Memorial.
One witness who saw the aircraft a moment or two before they struck said that one appeared to break away from the formation. But if the pilot had seen the mountain through a break in the clouds, it was too late.
The explosion shook the tearoom at the Rhodes Memorial and was heard over a wide area. The first news to reach DF Malan Airport came from a switchboard operator at Groote Schuur Hospital, who saw two of the jets smash into the mountain. Confirmation came a few minutes later when a game guard reported that he had seen the explosion on the mountain.
Immediately police and rescue personnel went into action, but there was little that could be done. The side of the mountain was clothed in thick fog. It was raining and the slopes were muddy and slippery, which made searching almost impossible. After a cold, wet climb, rescuers reported back on the grim scene on the mountain. So completely were the Mercurius jets destroyed that probably only the pilots could have had a split-second look into the face of death. The passengers knew nothing.
Planning for the event had been going on for two and a half months, and because of the unsettled weather in the Cape at that time of year, senior officers had worked out five complex plans to put on the safest and best display possible. These ranged from a magnificant clear-weather display in which more than two hundred SAAF aircraft- Impalas, Mirages, Vampires, Canberras, Buccaneers, Skymasters, Shackletons, Helicopters, Cessnas, Albatrosses and Dakotas- would fly past at different altitudes in ten action-packed minutes, to a display in thickly overcast weather of helicopters only, flying at five hundred feet. Three hundred and fifty pilots and crew were backed up by five hundred and fifty ground crew and communications staff.
The Operation had been planned with great precision. For the various aircraft to arrive over the dais at the right times, bearing in mind the great differences in their speeds, timing had to be calculated to split seconds.
There could be no overlaps, nor could there be large gaps between the formations. Precautions had even been made in the event of engine trouble, and pilots were instructed to head for the open sea where lifeboats and rescue squads were standing by.
To understand the disaster, it is necessary to look at some of the planning in greater detail.
Several plans had been worked out to make provision for variable weather. However all the plans were subject to the requirement that all flying was to be carried out in visual conditions, that is, the pilots would be able to see the ground at all times.
Electronic navigation aids were sited for the safe routing of aircraft, and all these were tested in practice. All pilots received written orders as well as detailed verbal pre-flight briefing, and were shown key points along the routes, from the air and on the ground.
The planners worked out holding areas for various types of aircraft, the routes they would take to the dais, the fly-past routes, the heights and speeds, the turning points and the routes from south of the saluting-base back to their bases, DF Malan Airport, the SAAF base at Ysterplaat and the Flying Training School at Langebaanweg. Summersfield was designated a reserve airfield.
Planners also made sure that routes, turns and altitudes would prevent collisions between aircraft and, if the weather should turn nasty, they would keep the aircraft away from high ground.
To make sure that the various groups of aircraft passed the saluting base within a certain number of seconds, aircraft with different speeds were grouped in blocks and instructed to fly at certain speeds and heights.
There were seven speed blocks, and the Mercurius aircraft were grouped with the Vampires and Impalas in the sixth block with a stipulated speed of 250 knots.
After the fly-past there was always the danger that the different aircraft might catch up with one another or collide on their return to base. To avoid that, formations were instructed either to fly straight on or turn to the left or right after the completion of the fly-past.
Aircraft with longer endurances, such as the Shackletons, Hercules, Dakotas, Skymasters, Albatrosses, Canberras and Buccaneers, were to fly straight ahead. Aircraft with short endurances- Vampires and Mirages- were to turn left and return to DF Malan Airport.
Turning right to return to their base at Langebaanweg, the Mercurius jets and Impalas took a breakaway route from south of the saluting base over low ground over the Swart River area. This was the safest route, for if they had turned left to return to base they would have had to fly over high ground, which would have been dangerous in bad weather.
The right turn for the Mercurius and Impala aircraft was calculated mathematically at a rate of one turn, that is, three degrees a second.
This at 250 knots, from a point thirty seconds flying time, also at 250 knots, south of the saluting-base would have given the aircraft a safe distance of two miles east of Devils Peak.
This calculation was tested in practice and found correct by the control staff. Leaders of formations were also given the opportunity to practice the turn and to comment on the practicability of this manoeuvre.
The leaders of the Mercurius and Impala teams flew the route and turned twice, once on the day of the accident, but neither made any comments to the control staff about the plan.
An extensive communications centre at Goodwood kept formation leaders and control staff under strict supervision, and the positions of formations could be ascertained and correlated with planned positions at all times. The communications system also allowed liaison between leaders of formations and enabled them to report changes in the weather and to receive new instructions from the control centre. There were no breakdowns in this communications system, and it worked perfectly.
So what went so terribly wrong on that practice flight on Wednesday, 26 May 1971?
At the various bases and over the saluting dais the weather was suitable for the rehearsal. However, during the fly-past, the base of a broken layer of cloud south of the dais was down to eight hundred feet, and approval was given by control center for formation leaders to reduce height to maintain visual flight. This was in accordance with instructions to formation leaders, including the leader of the Mercurius jets.
While flying towards the dais, the leader of the Vampires radioed to the leader of the Mercurius jets. He was thirty seconds behind the Mercurius jets, but he wanted confirmation that they were not behind time according to the tight schedule.
When the Mercurius leader confirmed that they were ten seconds late, the Vampire leader increased speed to 280 knots, at which speed he flew over the saluting dais. The distance between the Vampire and Mercurius formations at first decreased, then remained constant, which meant that the Mercurius leader also probably increased speed.
When the Mercurius formation flew into the broken cloud soon after flying over the dais, it maintained its planned height of a thousand feet. In doing so, the formation leader chose to ignore the overriding instruction that visual flight was to be maintained at all times.
Why did he do that? We can only suppose, as the board of inquiry did, that the leader regarded the flight in cloud as a common occurrence, for as a transport pilot he had complete confidence in his own ability and his instruments.
The Impalas, however, which were following the Mercurius formation, were taken by their leader below the clouds where they were able to maintain visual flight as ordered.
And what about instrument flying? The Mercurius had weather radar, but even if it was switched on, it is doubtful whether the leader would have had time to pay much attention to it.
The board of inquiry ran through the fatal flight in every detail. It flew the identical course in an identical aircraft. Then, together with evidence from eyewitnesses, it was able to reproduce the exact flight path of the Mercurius formation.
It showed that the principal cause of the accident was simply that the formation turned much wider than had been planned and which the leader had been instructed to do in his briefing before the flight.
The formation was flying faster than had been stipulated in its attempt to make up the few seconds that it had lost in the fly-past.
Now remember that the Mercurius formation had to break to the right thirty seconds after flying over the saluting base and then fly back along the same bearing to langebaanweg. Thirty seconds was adhered to, but the turn began farther south than the point planned. Again, the higher speed also resulted in a wider turn than had been planned, and the leader had not made allowance for that by turning more steeply.
The last, fatal error was in not maintaining visual contact with the ground. That would almost certainly have warned the leader that he was two miles west of his planned flight path and on a collision course with the mountain.
The board of inquiry found that the disaster was caused by the leader of the Mercurius formation not maintaining visual contact with the ground, and during the flight in the clouds, making an error of judgement by turning too wide, which resulted in a collision with the slopes of Devils Peak.
The deceased of the three Mercurius airplanes were:
Mercurius 01:
Maj MCdeG Genis
Capt DduP Lombard
Mercurius 02:
Cmdt LAF Henning
Maj GJ Euvrard
Maj N Beetge (24 Sqn)
Capt GN Snyman (24 Sqn)
Mercurius 03:
Maj HHAMC Lomoral
Maj WA Prinsloo
Cpl RN Grobler
L/Cpl E Hayes
Pvt GH Wasserman