Prang at Charles Prince
 

Has anyone heard of a pssible aircrash at Charles Prince Airport today? A mate of mine phoned me and left a very bad and unclear voice mail and I cannot get any further info.

Zimbabwe Air Crash
 

Sorry maybe I should have titled it Zim air crash. Has anyone heard? Apparently a light aircraft crash in Harare today?

Piper Comanche single, on flight to Gaberone, on take off appeared to lose power, stalled, right wing hit the ground, cartwheeled in, caught fire. Two fatalities, third in hospital in critical condition. Apparently all three were doctors.

Chares Prince Info
 

Many thanks Insane. I got a bit more info today. I know the plane very well and used to work on it regularly and the owner of the plane phoned me today and unfortunately I know the pilot very well. We still do not know who the other two are though but Zim becoming such a small community there is a good chance we will or at least know of them.

My thoughts and deepest sympahy go out to all the families.

Was it the same Comanche that did a wheels up at fvcp at night many years ago? Either way Not good news any further gen on what the cause was, ...a loss of power after take off?-how is that airport these days-any cases of watered down fuel there knowing the zim situation these days? Believe there was a case many years ago where one entire wing tank of avgas on a 172 was replaced with water over night

Loads of speculation, high density alt, being over loaded, rearward c of g.....

Spoke to an eye witness on the ph who says a/c was in a nose high att and it stopped in the air, wing dropped and into the ground!! apparently not very high either.

Charles Prince
 

Spoke to a Harare pal who's pilot witessed the event having just spent a bit of time chatting to the pilot and pax - aircraft got airborne and just did'nt seem to have any puff - a very tragic event indeed.Sympathies to the families and our Zimbabwe aviation friends.

"and it stopped in the air," .. are you reffering to the engine? curious if anyone knows the reg? or if it was the one with wingtip tanks?

Reg number
 

I will ask my mate the reg

Registration
 

According to Sky Relief the aircraft concerned was Z-YPU

Thanks CM for the gen, was thinking it was that one,I flew it about 15years ago was a nice machine, just hope it wasnt anybody I Know ...rip.

Just received this gen, I was also away and only heard recently. (email has been edited for anonymity)

The accident was on the morning of 12 March, I think it was at about 1030local. PA24-180 Z-YPU, on take-off from CP to Botswana where they were going to do some clinics. Pilot was urologist xxxx, pax yyyy, bone specialist and an african technician, zzzz. It is thought that the aircraft was overloaded and it was very hot. There were three people on board and 5 hours endurance .The wing stalled and the wingtip hit the ground and the aircraft cartwheeled and caught fire. The aircraft came to rest at the end of the runway near Aerotech. An engineer rushed out with fire extinguisher and put out the flames and dragged the people out. yyyy was alive but died soon afterwards, xxxx was already dead when he was taken from the aircraft and the technician, zzzz, who was in the back was critically injured, since heard he didn't make it?

The controller wasn't in the tower when the accident happened and the firecrew didn't see it either! Someone from MFC rushed to tell them that the aircraft had crashed and was burning! There hasn't been a fire engine at CP for some years and when they finally got the truck that they do have going, the fire extinguishers didn't work. To add to all this, there had been no landlines/phones in the Mt Hampden are for some weeks due to the MCB being stolen, cell phones also don't work well in Zim, so it was a major problem trying to get ambulances. The CAAZ ambulance has no equipment in it and is used mostly for staff transport!



Very very sad news. I didn't want to publish the names of those involved.

RIP

:oh: