Springbok 295

[kudu177]

36 years ago today. The Helderberg passengers and crew, 159 souls on board, and family members who died of broken hearts. Rest in peace.

[V5 - LEO]

....and another year slipped by quietly - RIP

[Trailblazer]

[1900]

Couple of YouTube videos regarding this tragedy. Sobering.
RIP

[Frontiersman]

Has anybody ever done themselves a favour and read through the comments of some of these Helderberg videos? So many lies and bullcrap by people who are clearly just looking for attention, just in these comments alone there are about three different comments about their uncle or father-in-law or a friend of the family that was supposed to do this flight but refused, or called in sick or whatever else.

For example, read this comment below, copied directly from Youtube, quote in red to make it easier to distinguish from my postings:

"My husband's father was a pilot at the time and ironically he was scheduled to pilot this flight, however he refused to as he had inadvertently discovered what the cargo was that the CEO of SAA at the time had not only aware of but had threatened to fire him and he was forced to sign a NDA, when my husband father made clear he feelings of the danger of the pick up cargo.

He had discovered that the cargo was Red Phosphorous which had been purchased from Taipei. Given that he was so close to his retirement, he was threatened that not only would he lose his job but his retirement too if he disclosed this information to anyone else. This is a decision that to this day he regrets not saying anything and went through massive bouts of depression etc."

So this dude refuses to do the flight, and captain Uys just happened to be in Taipei and available to do the flight? Did SAA station standby pilots at all of their destinations, in case somebody refused to take a flight or called in sick?

Next one. As far as I know, captain Uys was never the SAA chief pilot:

"The Captain, Dawie Uys, was a family friend of ours and offered to give me flying lessons when I was a teenager……he was also SAAs chief pilot"

Next one, this guy claims that the Helderberg originated in Singapore with a stopover in Taipei before flying onwards to Mauritius. To the best of my and Google's knowledge, SAA did not fly to Singapore in 1987:

"My Dad and brother were on stop over in Singapore at the time, he was a 747 commander with SAA and had chatted to this crew only hours before they left for Taipei en route to JHB via Mauritius. He has a pretty good idea of what was on board that flight as he was one of the last to speak to Bellagarda and Uys. Sadly it was Jimmy Deal who paid the price for opening his mouth about it."

And another one, this time the guy that was supposed to fly it called in sick:

"My mother's instructor was Uncle Brufford(that was what we called him not sure of his full name) he was supposed to fly as captain on the Helderberg that day but he called in sick"

These are just a few examples from the comments if this video posted above. Believe me, go read the comments on any of the many Helderberg videos available on Youtube and you'll find a hell of a lot of these types of comments. What kind of kick do people get from telling lies like this on these videos?

Some other comments on other videos that I have seen, one poster claims that he or she remembers that they pulled Joe Bellagarda's son out of class to break the news of the aircraft crashing to him.

Really? The Helderberg crashed in the early hours of a Saturday morning, and by the time it was breaking news on Good Morning South Africa (remember when that was still on?) families of crew members would already have been notified.

Anyways, sorry for this long rant. But this type of attention seeking bullcrap just seriously grates my patience.

[kudu177]

Has anybody ever done themselves a favour and read through the comments of some of these Helderberg videos? So many lies and bullcrap by people who are clearly just looking for attention, just in these comments alone there are about three different comments about their uncle or father-in-law or a friend of the family that was supposed to do this flight but refused, or called in sick or whatever else.

………..

Anyways, sorry for this long rant.

Don’t be sorry, I am completely with you on this. So much bull crap from nasty little attention seekers, either grubbing for hits or likes or wallowing in the swamp of conspiracy theories, which are no more than the early stages of mental illness. Interesting that it’s “a friend of my mother’s“ or “my dad’s ex uncle’s best friend” who are the sauce of these bits of junk.

The phone rang at 5 am on that Saturday. It was my news editor calling me to work because a plane had crashed. By then the passengers families, who had gathered at the airport, already knew, at least most of them. What we didn’t know was that everyone was dead.

I find it depressing that so many people cling, like ticks on a dog, to whatever conspiracy theory they can despite all the evidence suggests otherwise. And on and on and on and on it goes. It’s a disrespect to the families and the dead passengers and crew.