Accident ZS-OLD Congo
Hi Michael,
Thank you very much for your reply. I really appreciate each and every response. I fully agree that pilots do make mistakes, as we are all human. I also understand that altough the one pilot is flying the plane, they work together as a team. I am not blaming any one of them(the two pilots) or trying to say that it was not my sons fault. My fustration however, is that I cannot get the results on the black box. Surely this will tell the story. By analysing this report, according to my limited knowledge, one would be able to see if there was a steady decent and then the impact, which would indicate that it could be a pilots error, or alternatively that they lost altitude, which could indicated that there was a problem. This is all I need to finally accept what happened. We know that there was no voice cockpit recorder, therefore we do not know what was said in the cockpit.
Why is it so difficult to get the report on the black box?. According to the chief pilot - Air Serv, the black box (data recorder) was send to the USA to be analysised. The results/report was given to the DRC during Jan/Feb 2009. Civil Aviation SA did not do an investigation, and promised to get this info from the Congo. When requesting the NTSB to assist, I was also told by Dennis Jones (NTSB), to request this information via the Sout African Embassy, which I did. Needless to say I am still awaining any information. However, I am waiting patiently for the last five months.
Regards,
Johan