SA plane crash victim identified
11/03/2009 09:42 - (SA)
Erika Gibson, Beeld
Pretoria - He had spent four-and-a-half years in Iraq without getting hurt, but two months after his return, he died in a plane crash in Uganda.
Duncan Rykaart, a former Special Forces operator and colonel, was one of 11 people aboard a Ilyushin 76 cargo plane that crashed into Lake Victoria on Monday.
He had been working for Bancroft Global Development, an American company specialising in research on explosive devices and landmines, since January. The company advises the African Union's peacekeeping troops in Somalia.
"Duncan wanted to do something completely different and so he started working for us from January," said Rocky van Blerk, programme director at Bancroft on Tuesday.
He and Rykaart had known each other since 1979, when both where operators at the 5 Reconnaissance regiment in Phalaborwa.
"I spoke to him the night before the accident. Shortly after five o'clock the next morning, I got a call that the plane had crashed."
Rykaart was married with two children. His widow, Amanda, said on Tuesday that the search for the remains of the victims was continuing, but the wreck lay under 26m of water and oil.