Plane crash in Lenasia

[MicroFlyer]

I hear a plane crashed in Lenasia due to engine failure - anybody got any details?

July 08, 2004, 12:16

Three people have been critically injured in an accident involving a light aircraft at the Suiferfontein airfield in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg.

Malcolm Midgley, an emergency services spokesperson, says it seems the aircraft experienced engine failure before it crashed.

Midgley says one of the injured was airlifted to Milpark Hospital. The other two were taken to the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital.

Details are still sketchy. – Additional reporting by Sapa

[planecrazi]

Joyride' ends in crash (http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,6119,2-7-1442_1554746,00.html)
08/07/2004 13:31

Cape Town - A 49-year-old man and his two children, aged 13 and 20, were on a "joyride" when the small plane they were travelling in crashed onto an airstrip near Lenasia.

Captain Mbatzima Shiburi for police said the father and his daughter, 13, and son, 20, of Roshnie in Vereeniging was flying to Baragwanath on "a joyride", when they experienced engine trouble.

According to the CAA, the single engine of the four-seater Yodel plane cut out as they approached the landing strip at Syferfontein/Baragwanath near Lenasia about 10:00.

The man lost control over the plane, and they crashed onto the unmanned, unlicensed airfield.

Shiburi said it was impossible to tell whether the plane had landed on its belly or had nose-dived, because when he got to the crash site "the plane was all broken up into pieces".

Gauteng emergency services Malcolm Midgley told Sapa the man called his wife on his cellphone, alerting her to the accident and requesting her to send out emergency services.

Shiburi said the man was airlifted to Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg. He said there didn't seem to be any internal bleeding.

The children were cut and bruised and were taken to Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital for treatment.

Moses Seate of the Civil Aviation Association said investigators were at the scene to determine the cause of the engine failure.

He said "the aircraft was seriously damaged".