A judicial inquest could reopen questions around the fatal 2020 SACAA calibration aircraft crash after years of unresolved concerns.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has asked the Minister of Justice and Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi to open an inquest into the deaths of three South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) employees killed when the regulator’s calibration aircraft crashed near George in the Western Cape more than six years ago.
Creecy’s spokesperson Collen Msibi said the minister believes an inquest is the most effective way to determine whether anyone should be held accountable.
While the inquest still needs to be officially opened, it could provide a new independent mechanism to examine the circumstances surrounding the 23 January, 2020, crash of Cessna Citation S550 ZS-CAR.
Creecy’s move follows the submission to her office of a full manuscript report on the crash by a SACAA official after he submitted a protected whistle-blower report.
He was later fired – although SACAA vehemently denied the dismissal was related to whistle-blowing.
Simnikiwe Tolo, widow of pilot Captain Thabiso Tolo, was elated at the prospect of a fresh probe.
“I’m so relieved. I’m so happy. It’s mixed emotions,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
Both the families of the victims and SACAA objected to the contents of an independent investigation carried out by Ethiopian government experts after it was released in January 2022.
Tolo said the families did not agree with pilot error as the only reason for the crash.
While the regulator has not shared with The Citizen why it had an issue with the document, the Ethiopians found SACAA had violated several of its own regulations in relation to maintenance and equipment on the plane.
SACAA spokesperson Sisa Majola said the parties had both successfully appealed the content of the investigation at the time.
However, a source said there was no formal appeal process and that the families instead participated in a consultation with a “Judge Masipa”.
It remains unclear what recommendations resulted from that process or which Justice Masipa was involved.
Majola declined further questions after SACAA’s initial response describing the Ethiopian report as having been “successfully” appealed by both parties.
Tolo said that years later the families still did not know the outcome of the consultation.
Msibi was not immediately aware of the purported appeal and said the department of transport was looking into the matter and would revert to The Citizen.
The Ethiopian investigation found that the crew lost control of ZS-CAR after entering an unusual attitude in cloud-obscured mountainous terrain, but also identified regulatory failures within SACAA’s Flight Inspection Unit, where Captain Tolo was employed.
It found that a required annual flight data recorder (FDR) inspection had not been conducted, rendering the aircraft’s certificate of airworthiness invalid, that its FDR did not record nine mandatory parameters and that there was no record of a required inspection before the aircraft returned to service six days before the crash following an engine-related serious incident.
The manuscript was drafted by whistle-blower and now dismissed SACAA airworthiness inspector and former accident investigator Jeremiah Visser, following his own examination of the ZS-CAR crash.
Within days of filing the whistle-blowing report at SACAA, Visser also took his disclosures to Creecy, the public protector and parliament’s portfolio committee on transport.
He was also suspended during that time.
And while Majola said Visser later withdrew the whistle-blower report from the regulator’s system, Visser said the withdrawal was conditional and made amid concerns about the manner in which SACAA was investigating his disclosure.
He said he had questioned the independence of the investigation and offered to access his laptop and make an in-person presentation to assist the process, but both requests were refused.
Visser did not withdraw his separate disclosures to Creecy, the public protector and parliament’s portfolio committee on transport.
SACAA later approached the High Court in Pretoria, seeking an urgent interdict preventing him from publishing or distributing the detailed manuscript.
The application was struck from the roll with costs in July.
Visser was subsequently dismissed following a disciplinary process involving charges, including alleged breaches of confidentiality and insubordination.
Visser’s full manuscript also questioned whether other events during the final minutes of the flight had been adequately investigated, including the presence of another aircraft in the area before ZS-CAR crashed.
Attorney and pilot Emile Myburgh, who also acted for Visser, said it was impossible to know whether the manuscript and renewed attention surrounding the crash influenced Creecy’s decision.
“I suppose we will never know, but the fact that the case has got so much publicity, I won’t be surprised if that weighed on the minister’s mind,” he said.
Aviation analyst Guy Leitch welcomed a judicial examination of the accident and said the dispute surrounding the Ethiopian report had left the matter unresolved.
He said a full inquiry could “hopefully lay bare the true facts behind it”.
