How Military Chopper Crashed in Valley
|
| ||||||||||
The Nation (Nairobi)
August 2, 2005
Posted to the web August 1, 2005
Nation Reporters
Nairobi
Dr John Garang met his death in Kidepo valley, which stretches from Uganda to Sudan and is known for its captivating scenery and wildlife park straddling the countries.
The helicopter, a Russian built Mi-72 presidential chopper owned by the Ugandan military, crashed into the mountainous terrain, killing all 14 people on board. The others were six companions and seven crew.
Dr Garang had flown to Uganda last Friday for a two-day visit where he held talks with President Yoweri Museveni. He flew to Uganda from Nairobi's Wilson airport in a private chartered plane.
From Entebbe, he got into the presidential chopper which flew him to Rwakitura in Mbarara, the president's rural home where he stayed overnight. Sources said their talks touched on Dr Garang's vision of how he was going to govern Southern Sudan and its reconstruction.
He left Entebbe on Saturday at 5.25pm on the same presidential helicopter after giving an ultimatum to Joseph Kony's Lords Resistance Army rebel group to leave Southern Sudan.
The helicopter, which flew him from Mbarara, had stopped in Entebbe at 4.55pm to refuel on the way to Dr Garang's New Site camp in Southern Sudan.
According to reports from Kampala, the radar at Entebbe recorded the helicopter flying over Karenga and Kapedo areas, north of Kidepo Valley National Park in north-eastern Uganda at about 6.30pm. The area is close to the Kenyan border.
Then information was radioed back to Entebbe that the helicopter had encountered bad weather and that the pilot wanted to turn back.
Thereafter the pilot attempted to land at a place known as New Kush but aborted landing due to bad weather and headed south.
Minutes later, Entebbe lost communication with the helicopter crew.
It was at 7.25pm that an official of the Presidential Guard Brigade manning the desk at Entebbe's VIP lounge telephoned Rwakitura in Mbarara to inform President Museveni's officials about the missing helicopter.
Though it was clear that the helicopter had run into bad weather, there were also unconfirmed reports that it might have run out of fuel, probably after circling the valley trying to locate a suitable landing site.
Reports indicated that the wreckage of the chopper was discovered in the valley by villagers.
A combined search team of Ugandan, Kenyan and Sudanese military recovered the bodies.
|
Yesterday, President Museveni announced that he would form a committee of three experts to probe the accident.
He indicated that he had contacted another country, which he did not name, to carry out investigations on the aircraft to rule out terrorism.
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
