Air crash nightmare

17 August 2015 - 02:02 By Aphiwe Deklerk

One of the five people killed yesterday in a Cape Town plane crash was an 80-year-old man on his way to see his doctor after suffering a head injury. Gabriel le Roux, believed to be from Cape Town, sustained the injury following a fall while in Namibia.ER24 spokesman Werner Vermaak said: "[The injury] was not life-threatening but he had to be brought back to South Africa and be treated further here."Vermaak said Le Roux was being transferred from a private hospital in Oranjemund, Namibia, to the Panorama Hospital, Cape Town. He was accompanied on the flight by his daughter, Charmaine Koortzen, 50, who was based in Namibia and, according to her Facebook profile, worked for mining company Namdeb.The other three killed were pilot Steven Naude, 53, co-pilot Amore Espag, 23, and paramedic Alfred John Ward, 24.All three lived in Namibia but Ward previously lived in Bloemfontein, and studied at the city's Central University of Technology.ER24 said the plane left Namibia shortly after 4am and was expected at the Cape Town International Airport at about 7am yesterday.The control tower at Cape Town International lost contact with the aircraft after it had been "put on a holding pattern" to await a landing slot.Cape Town's fire and rescue services spokesman Theo Layne said rescue personnel struggled to see the crash scene clearly when they arrived on the site near the Tygerberg Nature Reserve because of heavy mist.A nightmare vision was revealed when they got closer.Said Layne: "The passengers' bodies were mangled in the wreckage. They are identifiable but the bodies are severely damaged."By midday yesterday, forensic and medical personnel were still examining the scene of the crash and the bodies had not been moved.Percy Morokane, spokesman for Air Traffic and Navigation Services Company, declined to comment on why radio contact with the plane had been lost, saying an investigation of the crash would be conducted by the Department of Transport's Aircraft Accident Investigations Unit.Ashley Abrahams, 27, of Maastricht Farm, near the scene of the crash, said he had heard a loud sound but dismissed it as thunder."I thought it was going to rain after that but, when I turned on the radio, I heard there was a plane crash," he said."It was still misty but I could see a lot of things scattered around. There was fire and a lot of smoke."..

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