In South Africa, families of 1967 plane crash victims allege information cover-up
In South Africa, Robin Lichter, a representative of the families of those killed in the crash of Springbok 406 «Rietbok», told the Hampepe Commission that the apartheid-era authorities may have concealed information about the search for the aircraft and the passengers’ bodies. This was reported by Daily Maverick. The Vickers Viscount aircraft crashed into the ocean near East London on March 13, 1967, killing all 25 people on board.
Families’ testimony
Lichter, who was 11 at the time of the crash, lost her father, Joseph Blankfield. According to her, on the evening of the accident, officials received a report that the aircraft and 21 bodies had been found. Lichter claims this information was not passed on to families waiting for news at Jan Smuts Airport, now OR Tambo International Airport. Later, she said, the official version was that neither the aircraft nor the bodies had been found.
Among the passengers was 52-year-old Professor Johannes Petrus van Schalkwyk Breuer, acting chairman of the secret nationalist organization Afrikaner Broederbond, a friend, speechwriter and adviser on African affairs to former Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Lichter told the commission that Breuer’s widow, Corrie, was paid an amount equivalent to 675,000 rand and threatened with the loss of pension or other financial support if she insisted on an investigation.
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Claims of wreckage discovery
Lichter also spoke about the death of US citizen Audrey Rosenthal. Before the flight, Rosenthal spent five weeks gathering information in South Africa for the banned Defence and Aid Fund for political prisoners and their families. According to Lichter, after the crash, the state was primarily interested in Rosenthal’s briefcase rather than searching for bodies.
In 2019, the families received an affidavit sent by a lawyer on behalf of a diver who served aboard the naval minesweeper SAS Johannesburg. The document stated that divers found the aircraft on the night of the crash and recorded the wreckage on underwater video. According to the diver, the footage showed passengers strapped into their seats. After viewing the video, the diving team was, according to his account, severely reprimanded and taken to an island so they would not speak about what they had seen.
In 2020, former sailor Eric Moss said that two minesweepers conducting search-and-rescue exercises immediately headed to the crash site and found wreckage. The families are seeking recognition of the crash as a crime of the apartheid era, referral of the case to a special prosecutor of the National Prosecuting Authority, and compensation for the victims’ families. A previous investigation chaired by Judge Cecil Margo identified pilot error as the cause of the crash.
