After nearly 2 and a half years .... the company was blamed .... RIP Guv ;-)
Company blamed for air crash (
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...184467,00.html )
Johannesburg - An aircraft charter company has been found to have been negligent by an inquest into an aircraft accident near Germiston in December 1999 in which 10 people lost their lives.
The inquest, held in the Edenvale regional court on Tuesday, found the luggage had not been weighed before the plane took off from Rand Airport in Germiston.
It was also found that the owner of Flight Line Charter CC had changed information in the operating manual of the aircraft which indicated the maximum take-off mass allowed. As a result, the aircraft was 363kg overweight.
The plane was on its way to Oranjemund in Namibia sand had engine failure shortly after take off and crashed, bursting into flames. The pilot and nine passengers, all of them employees of a computer training company, were killed.
The inquest found that the pilot, "JD" Heyns had acted according to prescribed emergency procedures when the engine failed. The overloading of the plane had made it impossible to fly the plane on only one engine.
The inquest findings are to be forwarded to the public prosecutor who will make a decision on the possible prosecution of the charter-company owner.