Flight accident involving the Zambian Air Force's DHC-5 Buffalo AF-319

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The memorial in honor of the airplane victims in the middle of the Heroes' Acre

The Gabon air disaster was an aircraft accident on the late evening of April 27, 1993, when a De Havilland Canada DHC-5D Buffalo military aircraft of the Zambian Air Force crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after refueling in Libreville , the capital of Gabon . On board the aircraft were among others 18 players from the Zambian national soccer team who were on their way to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal. None of the total of 30 aircraft occupants survived.

background

After Zambia gained independence from the British Empire in 1964, football was massively promoted by the country's first president, the autocrat Kenneth Kaunda . The commitment went so far that the national team was also known as KK Eleven after the initials Kaundas . In addition, the nationalized copper mining companies, responsible for the country's relatively high prosperity in the 1970s, also promoted national football, above all the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines . Under these conditions, which allowed professional gaming, Zambia rose to become the dominant football power in southern Africa , a position that only had to be given up when South Africa resumed international gaming.

The drop in the price of copper on international markets in the 1980s caused ever increasing economic problems in Zambia, and Kaunda, who was under pressure as a result, finally allowed presidential elections in 1991, in which he was promptly defeated. The new government immediately initiated an austerity course, which also cut funding for football massively. In addition, the copper mining companies were privatized under pressure from the International Monetary Fund , which largely eliminated economic subsidies for football. In spite of these circumstances, Zambia had a strong national team in 1993, the players of which had still benefited from the promotion during the reign of Kaunda and whose performances masked the problems that had arisen. The basic structure of the team were players who first caused a sensation at the 1988 Olympic Games in South Korea. In Gwangju, the Zambian national team defeated the Italian Olympic team 4-0, before losing to the BR Germany team in the quarter-finals with the same result.

At the time of the accident, Zambia was playing in qualifying for the 1994 African Cup of Nations and in the second qualifying round for the 1994 World Cup . In the Africa qualification, after a 3-0 win in Mauritius, the team was in first place in the table ahead of Zimbabwe and South Africa , in the World Cup qualification they had prevailed in the first round against Namibia and Madagascar and now played against Senegal and Morocco for a place at the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States.

The flight route with planned stopovers

At the start of the decisive World Cup qualification phase, the team was supposed to play against Senegal in the capital Dakar on May 2, 1993 . Because due to the precarious financial situation, but also because of mismanagement and corruption, there was not enough money to allow the team to travel to away games on a scheduled or charter flight , military aircraft were regularly used, including for the African Championship qualifier in Mauritius two days before Bad luck. There have already been incidents during trips of this kind. A few years before the crash, a machine was almost shot down by the Congolese military, and the players were briefly arrested after a hastily arranged landing; on a flight to Madagascar in 1992, the players had to put on life jackets to be on the safe side. A cargo plane of the Zambian Air Force of the type De Havilland Canada DHC-5D Buffalo was planned for the trip . The machine, which had already been unused for months, was subjected to an A and B check on April 26th , which revealed a number of technical defects; previously test flights had already been carried out on April 22nd and 26th. Because the aircraft was only designed for short-haul flights, a total of three refueling stops were planned. First in Brazzaville , Republic of the Congo , then in Libreville , Gabon and finally in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast , where the team was supposed to spend the night before reaching their destination Dakar in Senegal on April 28th .

the accident

The aircraft, which has been in service since 1975, took off six hours later at noon on April 27, 1993 in the Zambian capital Lusaka and landed five hours later for the first refueling stop in the Congolese capital Brazzaville. After refueling and a series of technical checks, the aircraft landed in Libreville for another two hours of flight time. During a brief technical inspection there, problems with the left engine were found, but the commander decided to continue the flight. Shortly after take-off, the left engine caught fire and at around 10:45 p.m. the machine crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 500 meters off the coast of Gabon .

Victim

A companion at the grave of Godfrey Chitalu (2008)

None of the 30 people on board survived the crash. In addition to the 18 national players Efford Chabala , John Soko , Whiteson Changwe , Robert Watiyakeni , Eston Mulenga , Derby Makinka , Moses Chikwalakwala , Wisdom Mumba Chansa , Kelvin Mutale , Timothy Mwitwa , Numba Mwila , Richard Mwanza , Samuel Chomba , Moses Masuwa , Kenan Simambe , Godfrey Kangwa , Winter Mumba and Patrick Banda , the two coaches Godfrey Chitalu and Alex Chola , association president Michael Mwape and two other officials, a team doctor , a journalist and five crew members were also killed.

Funeral service and burial place

Overview of the Heroes' Acre

The news of the crash was withheld by the authorities for twelve hours after the first reports, only when information about other networks emerged, the news was spread shortly after 1 p.m. The news was perceived as a national tragedy and plunged the entire country into mourning. The country's president Frederick Chiluba broke off a trip abroad in East Africa, ordered a one-week national mourning and, after consulting with the bereaved, announced that the 30 victims would be given a state funeral.

The coffins were transferred to Lusaka in a Zambia Airways passenger plane ; the journey to Independence Stadium , just a few kilometers away, took over three hours because tens of thousands of mourners accompanied the transfer to the stadium. There the coffins were laid out and the people were given the opportunity to bid farewell to the deceased all night long. The following day, 35,000 Zambians attended the funeral service in the stadium and more than 100,000 outside. The victims were then buried a few hundred meters north of the national stadium, the site has since been known as Heroes' Acre . The 30 graves are arranged in a semicircle, with a memorial in the middle of the square. Immediately after the accident, the players and officials were raised to the status of national heroes who died in the service of the fatherland, in particular the players are regularly referred to as Fallen Heroes (dt. Fallen heroes ).

A memorial ceremony takes place at Heroes' Acre every year on April 28th, which in Zambia is considered the day of calamity and the date of death is also noted on the tombstones. Government agencies announced after the first anniversary that they would not be able to make any further contributions to the commemoration, and have long refused to participate financially or logistically in the events. Even with the damp Zambian Football Association , this date soon no longer had a priority, this became particularly clear on the 10th anniversary, when the responsibility for the organization and the procurement of the necessary financial resources was passed on to the bereaved and the fan association Chipolopolo Soccer Fans Association . The site, which goes by the name of Football Heroes Burial Site as a "national monument" is part of the national heritage, is in a neglected condition for the majority of the year and is mostly only prepared shortly before the anniversaries.

Accident report and cause of the accident

After the accident, a commission of inquiry, consisting of Zambian and Gabonese representatives and the Canadian aircraft manufacturer De Havilland , began work. The investigation soon progressed slowly due to political disagreements between Zambia and Gabon over the crash. The publication of the accident report was initially announced for May 1996, but was officially delayed due to access problems to the aircraft wreck. As a result, the governments could not agree on the cost allocation of the investigation, and so, contrary to previous promises, no publication was made in June 1997. In the years after the crash, members of the opposition parliament tried to increase pressure on the Zambian government and the bereaved relatives were considering a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice , but the hoped-for publication still failed to materialize. As of 2011, the accident report is still kept under lock and key by the Zambian side, the last time the Zambian government cited “diplomatic matters” as the reason for delaying publication in April 2010. Relatives regularly vent their displeasure with this circumstance at the commemorations. Among other things, the question of whether the machine should have started at all is the focus.

Shortly after the crash, various rumors and conspiracy theories emerged about the cause of the crash, from a rocket fired by the Gabonese military at the possibly unexpected military aircraft to a bomb on board and a staging of the incident, the range of speculations ranged. The fact that the aircraft, as a military aircraft, did not have a flight recorder made it difficult to investigate the cause. There is also uncertainty about possible warnings at the airports of Brazzaville and Libreville to the flight crew that were ignored or never reached them. The soccer magazine African Soccer reported in the summer of 1993 that its correspondent was forced by officials to hand over the notes and tapes after a conversation with an air traffic control worker in the Congo, who reported serious concerns about the airworthiness of the plane during its stopover in the Congo.

In November 2003 the Gabonese Defense Ministry finally issued an investigation report. It is assumed that the overtired commander, who had flown the team back from the Mauritius game the day before, incorrectly switched off the right instead of the defective left engine due to a defective light display, which caused the machine to fall into the sea without propulsion.

Athletic progress

With Kalusha Bwalya , Zambia's Superstar and Africa's Footballer of the Year 1988, as well as Johnson Bwalya from FC Zurich and Charles Musonda from RSC Anderlecht , three players nominated for the game were not on board the plane because they were supposed to travel separately as European region players. Withdrawal from the competitions was never an issue, and just a few weeks after the crash, viewing courses with 30 players each were held in the Copperbelt and in the capital Lusaka in order to be able to put together a new national team under the direction of Freddie Mwila . Numerous governments and associations offered their support, so at the end of May the newly formed team played three benefit games against neighboring Malawi, which also served as the first test run for the newly formed team. At the invitation of the Danish government, the team spent a month preparing for the first international match after the tragedy in Denmark, a home game in the World Cup qualifying against Morocco. This was the first time in the history of the national team that such professional preparation took place. From the beginning of August, the team also spent a month in France and the Netherlands preparing for the other games.

Final table World Cup qualification 1994
rank country Gates Points
1 MoroccoMorocco Morocco 6: 3 6–2
2 Zambia 1964Zambia Zambia 6: 2 5-3
3 SenegalSenegal Senegal 1: 8 1-7

During the training camp in Denmark, the Danish coach Roald Poulsen , who later held the position of Zambian national coach twice, supported the training work, immediately before the game against Morocco, the Scot Ian Porterfield started his work as national coach, he was financed by the English association. In the first competitive game after the accident, they beat Morocco 2-1 on July 4, 1993 in the national stadium in Lusaka, followed by a 0-0 away game in World Cup qualification and a 4-0 home win in the second leg against Senegal, so that The away game on October 10, 1993 in Morocco decided whether to participate in the World Cup. Under circumstances that are still controversial in Zambia, Zambia missed the necessary draw and was defeated 0-1 to Morocco, which instead of Zambia took part in the following World Cup.

Meanwhile, the Zambian national team had already qualified for the 1994 African Cup of Nations in Tunisia in July 1993 with a 3-0 win against South Africa, which had only recently returned to FIFA , and a 1-1 draw against southern neighbor Zimbabwe . There they emerged from the three-team group stage as the winner and then prevailed in the quarter-finals against Senegal and in the semifinals against Mali. In the final, defender Elijah Litana gave Zambia the lead after just three minutes, while the Nigerian team, which six months later also caused a sensation at the 1994 World Cup, turned the game around with two goals from Emmanuel Amuneke and won 2-1. The final was the greatest success of the Zambian national team since the finals in 1974. The newly formed team was the only national team to be honored with the BBC African Footballer of the Year award, which is usually intended for players .

After a 3rd place at the 1996 African Cup of Nations, Zambia slipped into the mediocrity of African football due to the effects of national economic and structural problems. Since then, they have not been as close to qualifying for a World Cup as they were in October 1993, at the African Championships the team only got beyond the group phase 14 years later, at the 2010 African Championships . At the 2012 tournament , Zambia surprisingly won the Africa championship for the first time by winning the final against Ivory Coast on penalties. The venue for this game was the Gabonese capital Libreville.

Social consequences and compensation payments

Although an inheritance law was passed in 1989, the Intestate Succession Act , granting widows 20% and children 50% of the inheritance, 24 of 27 widows lost their legal property in the weeks following the disaster caused by the husband's family. According to old tribal tradition, the widow and her children continued to belong to her husband's extended family and were incorporated together with the property, often remarrying to a brother of the deceased. With increasing urbanization , but also with ever greater economic problems, this social component took a back seat and tradition was largely seen as a way to get hold of property quickly and easily. This practice, known as “property grabbing”, often begins immediately after the husband's death, when the bereaved meet to mourn in the deceased's house and relatives take control of the premises.

These incidents were facilitated by the fact that the widows were not informed about their rights, a will was available in only one case and there was a reluctance to ask for help from the government agencies that were considered to be corrupt. In addition, local courts, contrary to the legal situation, often decided in favor of the traditional approach and a relative of the deceased was appointed as the administrator of the estate by the court several times - exceeding legal authority. In addition, the government and the Zambian Football Association did nothing to stop this hustle and bustle.

Shortly after the crash, the Zambian government set up an aid fund of 119.6 million kwacha (around 140,000 pounds ), and additional funds were raised through a charity match “Africa versus the rest of the world” organized by the world football association FIFA . To avoid further conflicts between the widows and the families of the victims, separate payments were made. After two “scanty installments”, the surviving dependents were informed in autumn 1993 that there would be no further aid payments in the next two years. Many of the widows were forced to spend the money on replacing previously stolen household and everyday items instead of securing basic supplies.

Frustrated by the poor progress made with the accident report and the slow distribution, the survivors of 25 of the casualties took legal action and filed a lawsuit against the Zambian government in early 1996. In August 1998, the government agreed to pay compensation, but it was important to note that this was not accompanied by a declaration of liability. However, it was only after another four years in May 2002 that the court ordered the payment of 17 billion kwacha (about 4 million US dollars ). To calculate the individual compensation amount, a calculation key was used that stipulated that every player would have been active up to the age of 32 and then worked as a coach up to the age of 55.

See also

Aircraft accidents that have affected entire sports teams in the past include:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Darby, p. 130
  2. ^ Darby, p. 132
  3. ^ Darby, p. 133
  4. ^ Darby, p. 134
  5. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Zambia disaster plans in disarray (April 10, 2003) , accessed February 8, 2011
  6. ↑ zambianfootball.net: Gabon crash families appeals to Govt to show commitment (April 28, 2010) ( Memento from May 2, 2010 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. ↑ Volume 12 - LAWS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA - 1995 Edition (Revised): Chapter 173. National Heritage Conservation Commission Act (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  8. ↑ daily-mail.co.zm: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Red tape delays Gabon report (April 29, 2010) ), accessed on February 8, 2011@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.daily-mail.co.zm
  9. ↑ allafrica.com: Kapita Warns Chiluba Over Gabon Air Crash Report (March 2, 2000) , accessed February 8, 2011
  10. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Air crash families threaten legal action (April 28, 2002) , accessed February 8, 2011
  11. ↑ southernafrican.news: Zambian plane disaster report still not out 17 years later (April 30, 2010) , accessed November 30, 2016
  12. ↑ lusakatimes.com: Zambia: Ba Effo's Wife Goes Ballistics at Gabon Memorial (April 28, 2010) , accessed February 8, 2011
  13. ↑ bbc.co.uk: The day a nation cried (April 24, 2003) , accessed February 8, 2011
  14. ^ Montville, p. 92
  15. ↑ bbc.co.uk: 'Faulty plane' killed Zambia team (November 28, 2003) , accessed February 8, 2011
  16. ↑ fifa.com: The Adventures of "King Kalusha" (Sep. 9, 2004) , accessed on February 8, 2011
  17. ^ Montville, p. 95
  18. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Zambia's fall from glory (Nov. 29, 2001)
  19. ↑ Nkwilimba & Clarke, S. ii
  20. ↑ The George Washington International Law Review: PROPERTY-GRABBING UNDER AFRICAN CUSTOMARY LAW: REPUGNANT TO NATURAL JUSTICE, EQUITY, AND GOOD CONSCIENCE, YET A TROUBLING REALITY (Jan. 1, 2005) ( Memento of March 7, 2008 in the web archive archive.today ), available for a fee via heinonline.org
  21. ↑ Nkwilimba & Clarke, p.19
  22. ↑ Nkwilimba & Clarke, p.12
  23. ↑ Nkwilimba & Clarke, S. iv
  24. ^ Darby, p. 136
  25. ↑ bbc.co.uk: $ 4m for Zambian air crash families (May 13, 2002) , accessed February 8, 2011

Coordinates: 0 ° 27 ′ 14.4 ″  N , 9 ° 22 ′ 12 ″  E