Air accident involving UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld

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UN charter flight
Transair Sweden Douglas DC-6 Soderstrom.jpg

A Transair Sweden DC-6 , similar to the one that crashed
Accident summary
Type of accident unexplained
location about 14 km west of Ndola
date September 18, 1961
Fatalities 16
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Douglas DC-6 B
operator U.N.
Mark SE-BDY
Surname Albertine
Departure airport Ndjili Airport
Destination airport Ndola airport
Passengers 11
crew 5
Lists of aviation accidents

On September 18, 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld died in an air accident near the city of Ndola , in the border area between the breakaway Congolese province of Katanga and northern Rhodesia , today's Zambia . The reasons that led to the crash of his Douglas DC-6 B rented from Transair Sweden could not be clearly clarified. All 16 occupants of the plane died in the accident, and one passenger succumbed to his injuries after five days.

background

Dag Hammarskjöld (photograph from the 1950s)

The King of the Belgians, Baudouin I , gave the Congo its independence on June 30, 1960, praising the “colonial achievements and merits” of his empire - in fact Belgium had brutally plundered the country for 75 years ( Congo horror ). After the Belgian colonial rule ended, Patrice Lumumba , the leader of the independence movement, became the country's first freely elected head of government. But the short phase of democracy in the Congo did not last long, shooting in the streets, Belgian paratroopers and mercenaries occupied parts of the country, supposedly to protect white landowners, but above all to nationalize diamond, copper and cobalt and prevent uranium mines . Following the secession of Katanga province and the proclamation of a separatist government by Moïse Tschombé , Lumumba called on the United Nations for help. Katanga was the most resource-rich province in the Congo, where the mining company Union Minière du Haut-Katanga mined cobalt and - for the West, especially of enormous interest - uranium . Great Britain also feared stakes in mining companies. For the USA, Central Africa was interesting as a zone of influence during the Cold War and because of the large deposits of uranium.

The Shinkolobwe uranium mine near Jadotville remained the single largest source until the 1950s, despite US efforts to find alternative sources for uranium ore, and played an important role in Washington's geopolitical strategy in the context of the Cold War . The ore from the Congo was imported under absolute secrecy. In Kamina , west of Katanga, a huge military airport was built by Belgium and NATO "to defend Central Africa against international communism".

On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was murdered in a US-sponsored plot near Jadotville in Katanga, along with two political companions, Youth Minister Maurice Mpolo (1928–1961) and Senate Vice President Joseph Okito (1910–1961). Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief (COS), led the covert "Operation Wizard" for President Dwight D. Eisenhower . The CIA worked closely with Belgian colonialists and Congolese putschists to "remove Lumumba from the stage," as a CIA telegram put it. The Congo fell into a dictatorial regime of terror and civil war and became a playground for secret services and mercenaries.

On September 18, 1961, Hammarskjöld was on his way to a meeting with Moïse Tschombé , the president of the secessionist province of Katanga , in order to mediate in the context of the ONUC mission of the United Nations in the Congo crisis , which had escalated in the previous days. Also on board were his advisor for Africa issues, the German ethnologist Heinrich Wieschhoff , and 14 other inmates.

It has not yet been possible to clarify whether the crash was caused by a navigation error, a technical defect or a shooting down. The cause of the accident was suspected to be a shooting down by a foreign aircraft, by Katangian troops or by mercenaries with or without the involvement of the US American CIA , Great Britain or Belgium .

The investigations from the Rhodesian side took place between September 19, 1961 and November 2, 1961 under the direction of MCB Barber, the hearings from January 16 to 29, 1962. The Rhodesian Board of Investigation had 180 people search a 6 km² area . A second commission, chaired by the United Nations, conducted its own hearings and investigations between February and May 1962; it was headed by the Nepalese diplomat Rishikesh Shaha.

The official report includes a note that the two dead Swedish bodyguards had a number of wounds that could have been from bullets or metal splinters. It is possible that these injuries were caused by their ammunition, which exploded on impact or in the burning wreck. The US Sergeant Harold Julien, who initially survived the crash seriously injured, reported sparks and explosions before the crash. His statement was ignored by the Rhodesian investigators. Despite the best efforts of his doctors, Julien was not transferred to another clinic. He died of kidney failure in Ndola five days after the incident .

Flight history

Flight route of the UN Secretary-General (pink) and the second aircraft for diversion (black)

The crashed Douglas DC-6 ( registration number : SE-BDY) was bought in August 1961 by the charter airline Transair Sweden in the USA and then registered with a Swedish registration number. It was immediately rented by the UN and transferred directly from the USA to the Congo, where it took part in UN relief missions with other aircraft from the company.

On the morning of September 17, the plane took off from Elisabethville in the direction of Leopoldville to take Hammarskjöld and his delegation on board. The DC-6 was hit by a bullet shortly after it took off, so that the machine in Leopoldville had to be repaired by technicians from Transair Sweden before the UN flight . With the exception of the bullet hole, which was located in the exhaust pipe of one of the four aircraft engines , no further damage was found during the examination of the aircraft.

Hammarskjöld asked for air support for the flight, but the United Kingdom and the United States refused to do so. Instead, it was assured that the Belgian mercenary and fighter pilot Jan van Risseghem would not fly that day - a false promise, because he would be particularly active.

At 4:51 p.m. the plane took off with the UN Secretary-General for the flight to Ndola . Among the 16 inmates were three armed people, Hammarskjöld's Swedish bodyguards and US Sergeant Harold Julien. An official flight plan was not submitted for security reasons. Hammarskjöld was officially on board a Douglas DC-4 operated by Belgian International Air Services (registration number: OO-RIC ), which, as a diversion, had taken off from the same airport at 16:04 with a course for Ndola. While the DC-4 took off in a south-easterly direction and thus took an almost direct course to the destination airport, Hammarskjöld's machine first flew in an easterly direction to Lake Tanganyika .

The crew kept radio silence during the flight. The pilots reported to air traffic control in Salisbury for the first time at 10:02 p.m. to find out whether the second machine had already arrived in Ndola. The diversion machine landed at the destination at 10:35 p.m. At 10:40 p.m. the DC-6 reached Lake Tanganyika and now turned in a southerly direction, whereby the crew avoided flying over the Congolese province of Katanga.

The pilots contacted Ndola Airport at 11:35 p.m. and announced that they were expected to arrive there at 12:20 a.m. At 12:10 a.m., the machine sank to approximately 2000 meters (6000 feet). The pilots declared that the runway was in sight. The air traffic controller then gave clearance to land . Shortly afterwards, the DC-6 hit the ground.

Cause of accident

The search for the UN machine was delayed, although several aircraft were available in Ndola. According to official information, search planes did not discover the wreck until 3:00 p.m., nine hours after sunrise. According to unconfirmed reports, the scene of the accident was secured by Rhodesian troops that morning. The crash site was about 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Ndola Airfield. According to the Rhodesian final report, the accident was caused by a navigation error by the pilots. The UN, together with the ICAO, then carried out its own investigations, which could not clearly prove either a navigation error or a shooting down.

Pilot error

For the approach to Ndola, a minimum altitude of 2000 meters (6000 feet) was required to reach the radio beacon there . According to the Rhodesian investigators, the pilots did not adhere to the safety altitude. When the crew had the runway in sight, they turned right onto the runway and continued their descent. During the maneuver, the aircraft fell below the minimum flight altitude, grazed several treetops and hit a MSL (4357 feet) in hilly terrain at approx. 1500 meters ( controlled flight into terrain ). The pilots did not send a distress call before the impact.

Allegedly, the Rhodesian investigators found an open approach map for Ndolo airport in the wreck, while the map for the destination Ndola airport was missing from the on-board documents. However, it seems unlikely that the crew confused the two airfields and therefore made the approach too low. Ndolo Airport was in the urban area of ​​Leopoldville, where Transair Sweden and the UN had their headquarters.

Killed by another aircraft

The air traffic controller in Ndola stated that the pilots aborted their approach and wanted to head for a new destination. They did not give a reason for this. Allegedly, the machine circled several times over the airport. According to eyewitnesses, the Douglas DC-6 was attacked and shot at by a second aircraft. Some people claim to have seen the machine crash on fire. These representations are consistent with what Sergeant Harold Julien gave before his death. The chief maintenance technician of Transair Sweden found that the wreck had several holes, including in the cockpit area, which could have been caused by fire.

Kiu Eckstein reports on a conversation with the cameraman Kurt Werner Drews, who had met a pilot who told him that he had shot down the plane with Dag Hammarskjöld.

A hearing from an officer of the Katang Air Force was unusual for civil investigations. He stated that the Fouga Magister fighter planes stationed in Kolwezi were not involved in the incident and that these planes had been banned from night flying since July 1961.

Technical defect or sabotage

Due to the high degree of destruction, the burned-out wreck could only be examined incompletely. Investigators found that the machine hit the ground with the engines running . The landing flaps were partially extended. The landing gear was completely retracted and its flaps locked. There were no indications of technical defects or sabotage on the flight-relevant assemblies.

Some recovered cockpit instruments were transported to the USA for further investigation. No functional errors were found on them, and there was nothing to indicate that the devices had been manipulated in a targeted manner.

Recent findings and hypotheses

In 1968 the UN representative in the Congo, Conor Cruise O'Brien , published a play Murderous Angels (German version Mörderische Engel , translation by Dagobert Lindlau , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1971), in which he had a Colonel Alcibiades Zbyre perform on behalf of a British mining company organized the kidnapping and murder of Hammarskjöld. The French Colonel Roger Trinquier can be recognized in the figure of Zbyre, who operated in Katanga for a few months in 1961.

In 1998, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission published previously classified documents. They suggested that Hammarskjöld was the victim of an assassination plot by the secret services of South Africa , the United States and the United Kingdom , who saw their interests in the Congo threatened. The latter two deny the authenticity of these documents; and Desmond Tutu pointed out that it was not possible for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to verify the authenticity.

Göran Björkdahl, an employee of the Swedish aid organization SIDA , interviewed various witnesses in the vicinity of the crash site and viewed files about the Katanga crisis. He wrote in 2011 that he believed it was an assassination attempt for the benefit of mining companies such as Union Minière , in which Belgian, British and Rhodesian companies had interests.

British historian Susan Williams claims in her 2012 book Who Killed Hammarskjöld? that two Katangian Fouga Magister fighter planes took off from the base in Kolwesi at 11:05 p.m. to intercept Hammarskjöld's machine. The position of the UN aircraft had been forwarded to the fighter pilots from the control tower in Ndola. Because they did not reach Ndola in time, the Rhodesian air traffic controller deliberately put the Douglas DC-6 on hold . The Katangian aircraft had separately searched for the circling UN machine, which was then shot down by one of the jet fighters.

In 2014, The Guardian reported the possibility that the Anglo-Belgian mercenary pilot Jan van Risseghem, who was hired by the Royal Air Force during the war and specialized in reconnaissance missions, was the pilot who served in the Katang Air Force, Hammarskjöld's machine shot down. According to the members of the US Air Force Charles Southall, who in 1961 in a listening station of the National Security Agency (NSA) on Cyprus was stationed, the radio traffic of katangischen aircraft was intercepted during the air campaign by the NSA and recorded. The US ambassador to the Congo informed his government on the morning of September 18 about a possible shooting down, even before the UN plane was found.

Investigation by the UN from 2013 and documentation Cold Case Hammarskjöld

The Hammarskjöld Trust , headed by former British judge Stephen Sedley , issued a report in 2013 calling for the investigation to be reopened. The report concluded that five issues made a new investigation urgently necessary. Those five points were a Belgian mercenary pilot's admission that he shot the plane, a policeman watching very bright lights in the sky before the crash, another policeman saying he saw lightning in the sky, and the observation of another witness who saw a very bright light in heaven. The commission of inquiry called on the NSA to publish relevant previously secret information about air traffic.

Furthermore, an international group of former judges led by the British Lord Lea of ​​Crondall prepared an opinion on behalf of the Hammarskjöld Inquiry Trust , which was presented to the United Nations in 2015. The report states that there was a group of European politicians and business people who were interested in diverting the aircraft. This is in connection with the long-standing speculation that the aircraft might have been forced to make an unscheduled landing and was shot at in the process. This was also accepted as credible by the investigative commission headed by Stephen Sedley. The commission of inquiry, led by Lord Lea, was able to find another witness who spoke of the fact that there was more than one plane in the sky when the crash occurred.

A former US Air Force security officer reported that while working for the NSA at a listening post in Greece, he had heard of an aircraft being shot down near the Congo. The US stated that a search in the archives could not find any relevant documents, while the UK stated that due to security concerns, the Commission could not provide any documents it had requested.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would support the request for access to the classified documents in connection with this process from the governments concerned. In 2016, Ban requested one or more individuals to investigate the incident as a "last chance". In December 2016, Sweden submitted a motion to the General Assembly of the United Nations to set up a commission of inquiry. The application was supported by 56 states.

In October 2017, an investigation report was published to UN Secretary General António Guterres , in which an “... attack or an external threat” was classified as “plausible”. The Katanga rebels are suspected to be the perpetrators .

On March 27, 2018, UN Secretary General Guterres reassigned the lawyer Mohamed Chande Othman (Resolution 72/252) to continue his work in the “Hammarskjöld Commission” to investigate the death of Dag Hammarskjöld and the other 15 occupants of the aircraft.

Investigations, which began in 2018, confirmed that a US aircraft equipped to monitor radio traffic from aircraft in the area in question was in Ndola. The American side only admitted that there were further documents on this in archival holdings classified as secret. However, access to it was denied until the beginning of 2019. The investigation has brought to the public a telegram from a US diplomat that had previously been classified as secret, in which he named van Risseghem - there misspelled "vak Risseghel" - as an urgent suspect. According to the 95-page report published in September 2019 by special investigator Mohamed Chande Othman, a shooting remains "plausible". However, he expressly criticized the lack of transparency and named Great Britain, Russia, South Africa and the USA in particular. António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, promised further investigations.

In the documentary "Cold Case Hammarskjöld" from 2019, a friend of the mercenary pilot Jan van Risseghem reports that he confessed that Hammarskjöld's plane had been shot down before his death. He carried out the job without knowing the identity of the inmates. Jan van Risseghem, known as the "Lone Ranger", attacked UN troops as part of Katanga's tiny air force during those weeks. Because of his presence, the UN had requested air support for the flight. This admission suggests that van Risseghem, a legionnaire commissioned by the Katanga rebels, shot down Hammarskjöld's plane.

An overview of the events and the status of the investigations can be found in the UN archives in the section Death of Dag Hammarskjöld.

Commemoration

A road, memorial and museum have been built at the crash site west of Ndola. The memorial was proposed for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List on June 11, 1997 .

Movie and TV

  • The strange death of Mr Hammarskjöld , TV-BRD 1961, director: Klaus Wildenhahn (contribution for Panorama , length 45 min.)
  • Crash or attack? , 2016 TV docudrama series, (Original title: Deadly Mission ). Mayday alarm in the cockpit [Season 15; Episode 5].
  • Jadotville , feature film 2016. (Original title: The Siege of Jadotville).
  • Cold Case Hammarskjöld , documentary 2019. (Documentation, direction and screenplay: Mads Brügger )

literature

  • Susan Williams: Who killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa . Hurst, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84904-368-7 .
  • Susan Williams: Spies in the Congo: The Race for the Ore That Built the Atomic Bomb . Hurst, London 2016.
  • Ludo de Witte: Government Commission Murder The Death of Lumumbas and the Congo Crisis . Forum Verlag, Leipzig 2001.
  • Ludo de Witte: Crisis in Congo: de rol van de Verenigde Naties, de regering-Eyskens en het Koningshuis in de omverwerping van Lumumba en de opkomst van Mobutu . Van Halewyck, Leuven 1996.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Volker Bernhard: The mysterious death of a UN Secretary General. Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 2, 2020, accessed on February 4, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Susan Williams: How a rich uranium mine thrust the Congo into the center of the Cold War. In: The Conversation. September 1, 2016, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja: Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century , The Guardian, January 17, 2011
  4. ↑ Ludo de Witte: Government mandate murder. The death of Lumumbas and the Congo crisis. Forum Verlag, Leipzig 2001
  5. ↑ a b c d Julian Borger, Georgina Smith: Dag Hammarskjöld: evidence suggests UN chief's plane was shot down . In: The Guardian . August 17, 2011. (English)
  6. ↑ transairsweden.com: Douglas DC 6B SE-BDY (English), accessed on February 15, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b c Accident Report DC-6B SE-BDY , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 15, 2019.
  8. ^ A b "Lack of Diligence" after UN crash . In: Flight International . May 10, 1962. Page 746. (English)
  9. ↑ a b Hammarskjold crash inquiry opens . In: Flight International . January 25, 1962. Page 122. (English)
  10. ↑ Kiu Eckstein: One Life - Two Worlds. Biographical Notes in Times of Change. Hamburg 2017 p. 69, ISBN 978-3-7439-3297-5
  11. ↑ Susan Williams: Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa . London: Hurst, 2013. page 178.
  12. ↑ Emma Graham-Harrison, Andreas Rocksen, Mads Brügger: RAF veteran 'admitted 1961 killing of UN secretary general' . In: The Guardian January 12, 2019, accessed on January 13, 2019. Quote: “Jan van Risseghem has been named as a possible attacker before, but has always been described simply as a Belgian pilot. The Observer can now reveal that he had extensive ties to Britain, including a British mother and wife, trained with the RAF and was decorated by Britain for his service in the second world war. "
  13. ↑ Julian Borger: Dag Hammarskjöld's plane may have been shot down, ambassador warned . In: The Guardian , April 4, 2014.
  14. ↑ Julian Borger: Dag Hammarskjöld: evidence suggests UN chief's plane was shot down . In: The Guardian , August 17, 2011.
  15. ↑ Julian Borger, Judges call for reopening of inquiry into 1961 death of UN chief , in: The Guardian, September 9, 2013, accessed December 4, 2016
  16. ↑ UN says evidence justifies further inquiry into 1961 Hammarskjöld crash . In: The Guardian . July 6, 2015, accessed December 4, 2016
  17. ^ Julian Borger: Dag Hammarskjöld: Ban Ki-moon seeks to appoint investigator for fatal crash . In: The Guardian . August 25, 2016. Retrieved December 4, 2016
  18. ↑ Jamie Doward: UN to pursue further inquiry into death of Dag Hammarskjöld . In: The Guardian . December 3, 2016, accessed December 4, 2016.
  19. ↑ Airplane probably shot down by the UN chief , on n-tv.de from October 18, 2017
  20. ^ Alan Cowell, Rick Gladstone: Theory That Hammarskjold Plane Was Downed Is Bolstered by UN Report . Ed .: New York Times. New York October 25, 2017 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 8, 2018]).
  21. ↑ UN Secretary General: Mr. Mohamed Chande Othman of Tanzania - Dag Hammarskjöld investigation | United Nations Secretary-General. United Nations, March 27, 2018, accessed August 8, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Rick Gladstone: UN Renews Push to Solve Its Biggest Mystery: Hammarskjold's Death . Ed .: New York Times. New York March 27, 2018 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 8, 2018]).
  23. ↑ Emma Graham-Harrison, Andreas Rocksen, Mads Brügger: Man accused of shooting down UN chief: 'Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to ...' . In: The Guardian, January 12, 2019, accessed January 13, 2019
  24. ↑ a b Volker Bernhard: The mysterious death of a UN Secretary General. Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 2, 2020, accessed on February 4, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Death of Dag Hammarskjöld ( English ) UNITED NATIONS. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  26. ↑ a b Dag Hammarskjoeld Memorial (Crash site) . In: UNESCO World Heritage Center .
  27. ^ Movie starts : Jadotville. Retrieved September 19, 2018 .
  28. ↑ Minttu Mikkonen: Tuore dokumentti väittää ratkaisseensa yhden kylmän sodan ajan suurimmista arvoituksista: Palkkasoturi tunnusti ampuneensa alas YK: n pääsihteerin Dag Hammarskjöldin (fi) . In: Helsingin Sanomat , Sanoma, January 14, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019. 
  29. ^ School of Advanced Study

Coordinates: 12 ° 58 ′ 31.6 ″  S , 28 ° 31 ′ 22.5 ″  E