ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 180496
This information is added by users of ASN. Neither ASN nor the Flight Safety Foundation are responsible for the completeness or correctness of this information.
If you feel this information is incomplete or incorrect, you can submit corrected information.
| Date: | Friday 16 October 2015 |
| Time: | c. 07:30 |
| Type: |  Beechcraft F33A Bonanza |
| Owner/operator: | Intrax Investments 108 (Pty) Ltd |
| Registration: | ZS-MRM |
| MSN: | CE-1484 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | 20 km North of Graskop, Mpumalanga -
 South Africa
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Private |
| Departure airport: | FAWB (Wonderboom) |
| FAWB (Wonderboom) | |
| Investigating agency: | CAA S.A. |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information verified through data from accident investigation authorities |
The 23 year-old pilot planned an early morning hour-building round-trip private flight from Wonderboom Airport, near Pretoria to the Blyde River Canyon Dam and back. He created a flight plan on his laptop using a program called EasyGPS, where the first waypoint after departing Wonderboom was the aforementioned dam. No official flight plan was filed and upon departure, he told the controller his destination was Middelburg, which is 80 nautical miles east of the airport and in the general direction of where he was headed. The last radio contact with the aircraft was in the vicinity of eMalahleni (Witbank). When the pilot did not report for work at midday, his employer, the Absolute Aviation Group, where he worked in Operations, became concerned and made a phone call to establish his whereabouts. When contact could not be established and it was discovered the aircraft had not returned to Wonderboom, a missing aircraft alert was sent out. Search and rescue was activated at around 17:00, but due to failing light the search was called off until the following morning. Despite an extensive search in the Middelburg area on the Saturday, the aircraft was not found. On Sunday October 18th the pilot’s step-brother found the flight plan on the laptop and the information was relayed to the Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, after which the focus of the search moved to the Mariepskop/Graskop/Blyde River area. In the meantime the police applied for an Article 205 court order to have the pilot's cell phone company, Cell C, release the GPS co-ordinates signalled from his iPhone, which was still on. The aircraft was located at around 16:30 by a helicopter pilot from the Lowveld Aero Club, 30km north north-east of the town of Graskop, which is a further 130 nautical miles north east of Middelburg. The aircraft had collided with a rock formation, then impacted the ground nose first, after which it became airborne for another 100m before landing on a grassy plateau. This puts it north-west of the Injaka Dam and 23 km north of the look-out point known as God's Window. The aircraft was found wings level and mostly intact, except for the engine, propeller, cowlings and nose-wheel assembly which had broken away from the firewall. The weather is reported to have been marginal at the time with low cloud and fog and although the pilot was instrument rated, it is believed that the weather was a major contributor to the accident. The accident occurred on the edge of an escarpment, where mountain wave rotors are formed with strong wind shear and intense updraughts and downdraughts.
The following organizations were involved in the search and rescue effort
1. Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC)
2. Disaster Management heading the Joint Operations Centre (JOC)
3. Middelburg Flying Club
4. South African Air Force (pilot's, crews and command post officials)
5. South African Police Service Air Wing Command (pilot's, crews, diving unit, special operations, local stations and K9 members)
6. Off-Road Rescue Unit (Lowveld/Nelspruit, Off Road rescue Gauteng, Mountain Club of SA, Search and Rescue Magaliesberg Section)
7. Working on Fire
8. Various pilots that flew search missions
9. The Lowveld Aero Club
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
1. Light Aircraft missing from Wonderboom to Middelburg
2. Search on for missing plane
3. Soektog ná vlieënier van Pta vermis raak
4. Beechcraft Bonanza F33A ZS-MRM
5. Plaaslike vlieëniers en reddingspanne soek na vermiste vliegtuig
6. Missing aircraft found wrecked
7. Vlieënier se lyk en wrak gevind
8. Missing aircraft found wrecked after two-day search
9. Opvolg: Vlieënier geidentifiseer
10. Jannes Scheepers missing aircraft found near Blyde River Canyon
11. Jong vlieënier sterf sterf tragies
12. Jong vlieënier se lyk gevind: 'Hy het ʼn hart van goud gehad'
13. Missing plane wreckage found in Graskop, Mpumalanga
14. Wrak van ligte vliegtuig gevind
15. Vlieënier se lyk gevind: 20 meter sou dalk lewe red
16. Update - Body of pilot retrieved from plane wreck
17. Pilot's facebook page
History of this aircraft
Other occurrences involving this aircraft
| 10 September 2000 | ZS-MRM | 0 | km from threshold of Runway 35 (FALA). | |
Images:
Google Earth Map Created October 28, 2015
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 18-Oct-2015 18:49 | Topaz | Added |
| 18-Oct-2015 19:28 | Topaz | Updated [Time, Source, Narrative] |
| 18-Oct-2015 21:02 | Topaz | Updated [Location, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 18-Oct-2015 21:42 | Topaz | Updated [Destination airport, Narrative] |
| 19-Oct-2015 05:57 | Topaz | Updated [Source] |
| 19-Oct-2015 06:25 | Topaz | Updated [Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 19-Oct-2015 06:26 | Topaz | Updated [Source] |
| 19-Oct-2015 06:28 | Topaz | Updated [Narrative] |
| 19-Oct-2015 16:59 | Topaz | Updated [Narrative] |
| 20-Oct-2015 06:03 | Topaz | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 20-Oct-2015 09:58 | Topaz | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 20-Oct-2015 09:59 | Topaz | Updated [Source] |
| 24-Oct-2015 06:48 | Topaz | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 24-Oct-2015 06:52 | Topaz | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 28-Oct-2015 01:06 | Topaz | Updated [Narrative, Photo, ] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
The Aviation Safety Network is an exclusive service provided by:
Quick Links:
| ASN Home | Send Correction / Feedback |
| FSF Home | Disclaimer | Copyright |
| Contact Us | Privacy Policy |
| Press / Media |
CONNECT WITH US:
©2024 Flight Safety Foundation