Weather slows rescue effort

CANDICE BAILEY, SHAUN SMILLIE, SHAIN GERMANER, BOTHO MOLOSANKWE AND MOLOKO MOLOTO

Athol Franz lit a candle in the hope that a loved one and the other missing passengers would make it home alive as the search for two Albatross planes continued into a second day.

Franz’s fiancée, Linda Pierce, was one of the passengers on those planes.

But last night, search-and-rescue personnel called off the hunt as night fell on the remote mountains not far from Tzaneen, Limpopo.

The searchers and rescuers, who include the SANDF, police, firefighters, sniffer dogs and volunteers, will resume looking for what is believed to be between 12 and 14 people today. An official passenger list has yet to be released.

The planes disappeared after they had taken off from Tarentaal Airfield, outside Tzaneen, at 9.30am on Sunday.

They were heading to Rand Airport in Germiston after last weekend’s airshow in the Limpopo town. Contact was lost half an hour into the flight.

For the friends and relatives of the missing passengers and crew, it has been an anxious wait for news. At the Henley Air Centre, at Rand Airport, some relatives gathered.

Henley Air director Johan Coetzee said families were being encouraged to get as much rest as possible while waiting for news.

“They’re absolutely distraught, they’re tired and they haven’t slept. The problem is, they still have no information on their relatives, and there’s no chance for closure,” said Coetzee.

In a statement yesterday, Franz described how, after attending the Tzaneen airshow at the weekend, he and his fiancée flew home to Joburg on Sunday on separate airplanes. Pierce, on board one of the Albatrosses, took off first. An hour later, Franz took off in a formation of three Yak 52s.

“This is when I became concerned, because I tried to call Linda (my fiancée), who was a passenger on one of the two Albatrosses. I also tried to call other people who I knew were on this flight back to Johannesburg – no answers to any of my calls,” he said.

He fears the worst.

“As I write this newsletter many hours later and after my eyes have become red with crying, I am devastated that there is a possibility that the two Albatrosses either collided in the turbulent air on the lee side of the mountains or that they flew into the mountains whilst (flying through) a cloud.”

Some friends and family also gathered in Tzaneen, like pilot Nigel Hopkins, who was supporting his longtime friend and colleague, Dennis Spence, last night. Spence’s wife Tess is on one of the missing aircraft.

Initially, it was incorrectly reported in The Star that Dennis was on one of the planes. The couple have a daughter Angela, who is studying abroad.

According to posts on a social networking site, she arrived home on Thursday.

In one of her mother’s last posts on Facebook, before the plane disappeared, she posted: “thanks for dinner!! x x lovely to have you home for one day.”

Last night, Hopkins said: “We haven’t found anything. The weather is too bad.”

There were eight helicopters searching the area, said Hopkins, including military, police and civilian aircraft.

Meanwhile, Michael Gruar, the cousin of Brian Gruar, spoke to The Star about the last time he saw his relative, two weeks ago.

Michael, who lives in Hoedspruit, last saw Brian and his wife Marianne at the President Air Race in Hoedspruit.

“They said they were coming through for the Tzaneen airshow but they didn’t contact me.

“They had taken photos of us together. He was supposed to send it to me via SMS, but he never did.”

Brian was apparently flying one of the two aircraft. The couple are in their mid-50s.

According to media reports, the Gruars were travelling with the three young children of a close relative.

Michael described Brian as an “excellent pilot”, who owned two to three planes and sat on the SA National Aerobatics Team.

Near Tzaneen, two witnesses came forward claiming they had seen the planes shortly before they crashed.

Alpheus Sebela said he was searching for his cattle in the bush in the Ga-Maake area outside Tzaneen when the two planes flew over him. He said they were flying low, behind each other.

The weather was misty and thick fog had engulfed the mountains.

“I heard a bang just after they flew past me,” he said. “The mountain had been covered with fog, in fact today’s weather is better.”

Mackson Maake confirmed they had been flying low, but he was not sure if they had crashed into the mountain. “They were flying behind each other,” said Maake.

Bad weather has hampered the search since it was launched on Sunday afternoon. It was delayed by about eight hours yesterday.