inBUSINESS Issue 14

TRIBUTE TO MASIRE
Masire, “the
Precocious
Lad from
Kanye”
In a country that has no legal provision
for releasing classified documents, the
nation of Batswana may never know
exactly what happened when the plane
carrying their president fell from the
Angolan sky at the speed of a rock 19
years ago, writes DOUGLAS TSIAKO
“The media and other interested parties
are informed that (the) Botswana Defence
Force headquarters will not issue any
statements nor will it authorise the crew
of the aircraft to issue any statement about
the incident until the Board of Enquiry has
completed its task,” an official statement said
at the time.
The board was made up of three BDF
officers and two officials of the Department
of Civil Aviation. A parallel investigation,
in which experts from Botswana and British
Aerospace “would have an input”, was taking
place in Angola simultaneously. Known
facts preceding the near fatal incident are
that Sir Ketumile Masire and his delegation,
which included Ponatshego Kedikilwe, then
Minister for Presidential Affairs, and Loiuse
Selepeng, then Deputy Permanent Secretary
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were
travelling to Luanda for a Frontline States
summit.
But the flight was star-crossed by poor
communication between Gaborone and
Luanda right from the beginning. At the
time, Angola had a decrepit and nonfunctional
communications system, thanks
to the country’s invasion by apartheid South
Africa and its Western allies.
Where contact might have been
established, the spoken word proved to be
another problem in that English-speaking
Botswana and Portuguese-speaking Angola
did not quite readily understand each other,
thanks to colonialism.
The result was that OK1 was intercepted
by a missile from an Angolan jet fighter that
apparently mistook it for enemy aircraft as it
flew over “a restricted area”. It was hit on the
right wing, causing the right side engine to
explode as it ripped through the fuselage.
OK1 was hit as it flew over the Angolan
fortress town, Kuito Bie, which lies
approximated 1100 kilometres northwest of
Maun, and only slightly west of Jamba, which
had been the ‘capital’ of Jonas Savimbi and
his Unita forces for the previous 13 years.
Kuito Bie had a radio facility, but it was
not available for navigational use at the time.
Ten degrees west of Kuito Bie, the town of
Menogue also had a radio facility that was
similarly unavailable for navigation.
OK1 hit the ground 35 000 feet below in
five minutes. But, as we all happily know,
it eventually proved to have been a safe
landing, a feat by any aviation standards.
Two of the crew were Colonel Albert
Scheefers of the air-wing of the BDF and
Captain Ricketts who was on secondment
to Botswana from British Aerospace, the
manufacturers of the Presidential jet.
OK1 had been flying along Corridor UG
853D, which overflies Maun, and Shakawe
inside Botswana, and then cuts across the
Caprivi Strip.
But this route had been closed to civilian
traffic for security reasons 12 months
previously.
The Department of Civil Aviation
confirmed at the time that all civil aviation
authorities - including Botswana’s - had
been duly notified of the fact by IATA, the
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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 14 | 2017