a goodbye
 

To our friends Capt and F/O, may you rest in the knowledge that you were brilliant guys, excellent pilots and good friends.
To friends, families and collegues our thoughts are with you in this troubled time.
Thank you to our SAR teams who flew in difficult circumstances searching for our lost friends.
Africa, esp DRC, is as we all know one of the most trecherous environments and to everyone flying here, continue the good work you are doing and fly safe. For those not in africa understand this is completly different to anything you have ever experienced, in time you will understand.
In time old friends will be reunited...Bye for now my friends..

I still spoke to the poor guy on friday morning at Goma.. If i am not mistaken, he had just moved up to Goma from Lubumbashi after spending a while there and seemed relieved to be in a new place..

I also flew to Beni and back that day from Goma and the weather was not bad, just the usual clouds around the mountains at about 12000ft. I hate to say this but I think the one of the only ways that he could have flown into the 17000ft mountain is if he was not briefed on the routing that all the aircraft flying to Bunia/Beni take from Goma. That mountain is covered in cloud 90% of the time and friday was no different..

I did however hear from the aviation medicine doc at Goma (SA contingent working for UN), that the wreckage was spread over about 150mtr with no real visible impact point..

RIP guys, another sad loss to the aviation community

A Guillaumet team we need!
 

Dear colleagues, friends and families,

Please consider that there are still chances.
As long as you're not proven the contrary there's still a chance!

Henry Guillaumet crashed his Potez 25 in 1930 in the Andes on his 92nd crossing of the cordillera. He's been then walking for a week and finally arrived to a village after crossing three chains of mountains.

So as long as we're not proven the contrary, there's still hope for our friends!
It's not time for condoleances... it's time to go there and get them back!

A team will start an expedition tomorrow to get there. It's going to be hard walking, can take days, but in the meantime let's stop speculating and criticisms... it's not the time for this... we'll have time when our friends will be back!

Regards to all,


Reviens nono!

anyone knows captain's name?

Thoughts go out to friends, families, loved ones and of course the operator of the C208B. It must be an incredibly hard time for all at the moment and hopefully they know that many people's prayers and thoughts are with them.

:{ Sad this is. Any accident where lives are lost, is a tragedy, period. Lives are irreplaceable.
My thoughts to the families and friends of all involved. My best wishes and condolences, may all of us involved in aviation learn and grow safer allways.
One should focus to learn from such tragedies, support the people and companies involved and thus, make positive contributions.
This start off with training, with planning, contracts, maintenance, ATCs, airfield personnel, everybody, my wish it that all will work together in a supportive spirit to make flying the safe, fun and professional thing to do.

So sad the whole event! Really does take the fun and pleasure of flying in Africa when things like this happen. My thoughts are with the families and friends involved.

Pointer41- I agree with you that we must all stick together and learn from this! We do not know what went wrong yet, and it is always easy in hind sight to speculate. But I do feel that having flown in many a region around this treacharous continent including the Kivu region, that not enough emphasis is based on regional knowledge. The so called contract pilots do not have a very good reputation in the well established airline, more SOP orientated environment, and yet they are a special breed of pilots that make do with the little support and information available to them. The dispatch rate of aircraft on contract is too high considering what the real operating minima would be in the more controlled Airline or Charter market. I have been there and done that many a day with several of the African contract operators and been lucky to live to tell the story. Companies are too money driven to get contracts and make profit to actually stop and take time to think how they could improve safety. Hour requirements drop each year and more and more inexperienced crew are placed to do the job that years ago high hour crew were doing. Crew get hired with lower experience then ever before and are put in the field to fill shoes of much more experienced ones. There is no short cut to experience!

It all ofcourse boils down to time and money again on the companies behalf. But with us crew not enough regional knowledge is passed on from more experienced crew to new arrivals. There are regions on the continent that I have been placed into by several operators to do a job with no handover. As crew you have to try and absorb as much information from other operators in the area and try and survive. Operatators should place more emphasis on passing required important operational information to new crews.
It is hard to do but still there should be more open discussions on region specific advice. In the deepest darkest corner its the inside/infield information that allow for the task on hand to be completed safely. Operating minima take a whole new meaning when out in the field.

Contract flying has improved over the last decade and has become more SOP orientated with better maintenance. It is only due to the good operating skills and judgement of each experienced pilot out there that there have not been more accidents and incidents.

Lets learn from this and prevent future accidents!

In Africa there is always tomorrow... no pressure pilots!

KESHO

Well said, boet!:ok:

My honest condolences to all involved …

Not time for flying lessons nor condoleances
 

Hi guys,

Sorry to say so but it's not time for flying lessons nor condoleances...
An expedition is on its way.
There are chances still and i refuse to admit it is over yet as we still see from time to time our friend the copilot appearing on MSN messenger as online for short periods everyday... he has a laptop with bluetooth and cellphone... there is a password to access his msn... so right now i think he is alive!!

So let's wait and see and certainly not abandon searches!

I'll keep you advised of this...
Cheers

Is there anybody thinking here??
 

I would appreciate that everybody could stop speculating on what happened or not... Nobody even knows anything and we should all pray to see our friend alive. I think about his family waiting for him, and loosing hope day after day. Can you imagine one of them reading such things??
For him... keep relax and stop relating bad news.
Thanks a lot...
Why it happened, when, where, how... no matter but knowing if heart is still beating...
Just think about this please...

It's why it's called a rumour network....

Anyone have anymore news about the wreckage or news of survivors.
Safe flying guys please!
Cheers

link
 

http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200605011075.html

All we can really say for now is there...

We should get more news today as the expedition stopped for the night but was getting near last night.

Any update on the situation? Hope to hear good news soon!!

progression
 

The progression of the ground Search and rescue team is made difficult by bad weather.
Yesterday night they were splitted in two to follow two different ways up.
They had to stop for the night at about 2 km of the crash site.

More updates today hopefully.

It's a very difficult and eventually dangerous climb on the Margherita Peak and specially during the little rainy season... we can only wait for news... no rumour or speculation is usefull to anybody in the meantime.

Our friend appeared again on Msn Messenger last night at 1700z which still give us hope that he's alive.

Regards

Hi Tyfilou
Which friend appearing on MSN are you referring to?

It's over
 

The Ground Search team has reached the plane and
found three bodies.

Condoleances and regards to families and friends....

Condolences and prayers for our friends and their families.
Have the names been released yet?
RIP

:sad: :sad:
Condolences and prayers to families and friends.

May they rest in peace, and may their memories never leave us.