News The speculation is that poor visibility, owing to the inclement weather, caused the pilot to miss the runway.
Light aircraft crash lands at Lanseria Airport
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light aircraft crash at the Lanseria International Airport, north of Randburg and Sandton in Johannesburg, South Africa, resulted in the death of three people on 3 February this year.
Johannesburg and planned to land at Lanseria Airport. The aircraft came down in early morning rain and mist conditions on a cleared section of ground and completely missed the adjacent runway.
Lanseria International Airport manager, Gavin Sayce, confirmed the death of three people after a King Air 90 light aircraft crash landed at the privatelyowned Johannesburg airport.
Lanseria International Airport spokesperson, Claudette Vianello, said the aircraft burst into flames on impact. “There’s speculation that it was a controlled flight into terrain crash,” said Vianello.
“Unfortunately all three people on board, two passengers and a pilot are dead. It is too early to speculate about the cause,” said Sayce. According to media reports, the plane crashed and burst into flames while attempting to land in bad weather. The plane had taken off from Rand Airport in Germiston, east of
In November 2013, Lanseria opened a new runway parallel to the existing one. The original runway has not been in use and is currently being ripped up. The heap of gravel into which the plane crashed, about the size of a house, was a consequence of the earthworks underway at the airport.
Upon realising the aircraft was in danger of hitting a nearby building at the airport off the runway, the pilot then aimed for the gravel heap. According to the Aviation Safety Network, however, the craft was believed to have been disabled by a fire. Media reports suggest that onlookers claimed to have seen smoke coming from the plane before it crashed. Emergency medical care and response service, ER24 spokesperson, Werner Vermaak, told a local news services that the company’s crews did not mention any specific issues in making their way to the crash site. “However, responding to the incident was a bit trickier than usual due to the heavy downpour and slow-moving traffic,” stated Vermaak. “We had emergency vehicles responding from Sandton, Roodepoort and Paulshof,” he said. Airport management confirmed that the passenger and two crew members were all South Africans. An investigation is being conducted by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Lanseria spokesperson, Claudette Vianello, said the light aircraft was registered as ZS-CLT.
Fire destroys locomotive of luxury passenger train A locomotive of the internationally renowned Blue Train caught fire and burned out on 8 February this year.
locomotive had been brought in. The cause of the fire was still to be investigated.
The locomotive caught fire as the luxury Blue Train was leaving Kimberley in a southerly direction, according to reports from a local news service in Kimberley.
Local emergency services arrived on the scene soon after the incident, which included the Sol Plaatje Local Municipality Emergency Services in Kimberley, as well as emergency medical service, ER24.
“This particular rail line is parallel to Landbou Drive and the smoke from the fire could be seen from a distance,” stated a local newspaper report from Kimberley. Transnet Freight Rail spokesperson, Sandile Simelane, said there were no reported injuries and an alternative
Paramedics from ER24 Kimberley provided medical standby, although no one was injured in the blaze that was believed to have started at 03h00 in the early hours of the morning. In March 2013, another fire broke out on the Blue Train in which six
coaches of the train were damaged in the fire at a station in Pretoria. Fire fighters from Tshwane Emergency Services responded to that fire, which was believed to have started in the kitchen. The interiors of three coaches were totally destroyed in that incident. In the Kimberly fire incident earlier this year, media were kept at bay as emergency workers attended to the fire on the locomotive. Security officers at the incident prevented photographers from getting close to the scene of the fire as ‘they were on Transnet premises’, reported a local newspaper in Kimberley. Volume 2 No. 10
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