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By Shaun Smillie, Kashiefa Ajam 
3h ago
By Shaun Smillie and Kashiefa Ajam
Liezl Hamman believes his brother Hansie de Lange was killed in a plane crash caused by a faulty seat and pilot error.
Twenty years later, he would learn of an unknown investigation that years ago cleared the dead pilot of wrongdoing and suggested a cover-up.
De Lange, along with Llewellyn Jones and Johan Kotze, were killed instantly when the Cessna 185 they were flying crashed near Syferfontein Airport on November 23, 2000.
At that time, the Civil Aviation Authority launched an investigation into the fatal accident.
It was concluded in May 2002 and the results were that the cause of the accident was pilot error.
“One possible reason they gave for the accident was that the seat could have slid backwards. The pilot grabbed the joystick and lost control, “says Hamman, who spoke to the Saturday Star from the UK, where he now lives. The Cessna 185 aircraft was known to have a pilot seat problem, which was known to be it would slide backwards if the aircraft was on a steep climb.
What is known is that on the day of the accident, De Lange had joined Jones and Kotze for the flight. They flew into Syferfontein airport, near Lenasia, to perform touch and go, where a pilot trains to land, but instead of stopping on the runway, he turns on and takes off again. Jones was piloting the plane, with Kotze as the trainee pilot. De Lange was 21 at the time and had been flying since he was 16.
After the report was released, de Lange’s family reluctantly accepted his findings.
What they didn’t know was that Jones’s father, Bill, a retired airline captain, had started his own investigation. He was not convinced that the report’s conclusions were accurate. Bill owned the Cessna 185 and had fixed the problem with the sliding seat failure.
He returned to interview witnesses who claimed to have witnessed the accident on that fateful day. What he found collided with what the CAA had discovered. Bill approached then-transportation minister Jeff Radebe.
The minister ordered his department to investigate the accident.
A panel of experts was brought in and reinterviewed the witnesses and forensically examined their testimony.
The new investigation concluded that several of the witnesses had lied, including two pilots, Stephan Bosman and Rob Fenenga, who were in a helicopter that day.
“Their job for the day was to follow these two vehicles in transit and they had claimed they were flying above these two vehicles, above the N12 when they saw the accident, about five kilometers away. But the investigators found through simulations it was impossible for anyone in the helicopter to see a camouflaged Cessna flying below horizon level, “says Hamman.
The Cessna was camouflaged because it had been purchased from the South African Air Force and was still in its original color scheme.
Investigators from the Department of Transportation concluded that the helicopter had landed on the runway and had taken off before the accident. The pilot had initially landed in hopes of buying cold drinks for the crew. Much of this evidence was based on a third witness, James Raper, who was in the helicopter at the time.
“The accident was caused by the cutting of the helicopter in front of the Cessna that forced the pilot of the Cessna to take evasive action, which caused the loss of control and the accident,” the report concludes.
The report further indicated that the confusion of radio frequencies used at the airport contributed to the accident.
“The likely scenario is that the helicopter’s radio was set to 125.8 when it was north of the N12 after leaving around Westonaria. As they crossed the N12 on their way to the Syferfontein airstrip in the hangars, they switched to the GFA frequency of 124.4. The Cessna would have been on the Syferfontein frequency of 122.6.
If after landing at Syferfontein Airport and being alerted by the radio call that the vehicles were approaching the Lenasia turnoff and preparing for take-off, the helicopter pilots could have called 124.4 before taking off, if If they did, the Cessna would do it altogether. You probably haven’t heard them. The Cessna, in turn, could not have indicated its presence, as it would have been completely unaware that the helicopter intended to take off and cross its path. “
In the findings, the authors also emphasized how the witnesses had committed perjury.
The CAA’s initial report had relied heavily on evidence from the two helicopter pilots, who, according to the subsequent report, had lied.
But one of the pilots, Fenenga, denied having lied or causing the accident.
“I don’t understand how James (Raper) thinks we were there. I remember that we were not at the airfield, ”he says. “Maybe I had flown there in the past with another pilot and landed at the airfield, I don’t know. We did not cause that accident. You just don’t know what it’s like to be blamed for something you know you haven’t done. “
The report was finalized in 2009, but was only uploaded to the CAA website in August of this year. His discovery was a severe blow to the de Lange family.
“My parents have taken it very badly. The first time, they went through stages of mourning. Anxiety, shock, and disbelief at what happened. Now, it’s more anger. And it is anger at the impotence of the situation, ”says Hamman.
The elapsed time has other implications.
“It is not possible for us to take legal action against helicopter pilots due to the statute of limitations, if it was a coincidence that we only got to know about it almost 20 years later. One can only speculate. We were denied the opportunity to take this matter to court, ”says Hamman.
CAA spokesman Kabelo Ledwaba said it was never the authority’s intention not to replace the new report with the revised one.
“Due to the time that has elapsed since both processes were carried out, it is not clear if the team of the Division of Accident and Incident Investigation of the then SACAA received a copy of the second report. The current team at the Accident and Incident Investigation Division replaced the previous report with the last one upon learning of this gap, ”he says.
All Hamman can hope for now is that his brother did not die in vain, and that the safety recommendations requested in the second investigation are put into practice to protect the lives of passengers and aircrew in the future. These include a standard radio frequency for unmanned airports like Syferfontein.
Also, you want to know what really happened that day and have someone take responsibility.
“We just want the truth, we just want someone to say that this is what happened, we are sorry, we made a mistake. We want to know what happened that day so we can make ourselves understand how horrible it happened, “he says.
Saturday’s star
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