How the Mozambican president and 30 top officials died in a plane crash in 1986

36 years ago, on October 19, 1986, the president of Mozambique, Samora Machel, and 30 senior members of his government. The aircraft crashes near Maputo airport.

Machel died on Sunday night when the plane crashed in which he was traveling from Mbala (Zambia) to Maputo, in a mountainous area of ​​South Africa, one kilometer from the border with his country. The president was returning from meeting with the presidents of Zambia and Zaire.

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A total of 33 people lost their lives, including two cabinet members, in the event, which occurred near Nkoinati, where Machel made peace with Pretoria in 1984.

The Soviet pilot, one of the five survivors, was unable to prevent the plane from crashing while flying low to escape a storm.

A pilot who flew over the crashed plane, a Soviet-made Tupolev, reported that the front section of the plane was mostly intact, but the rear was almost completely destroyed, as is often the case with explosions. The remains were scattered in a radius of one kilometer.

The South African Foreign Minister, Roelof Pik Botha, who made a personal inspection of the scene of the event, identified the body of Samora Machel. He said the plane, with 38 passengers, was flying to Mozambique at night, deviated from its route and entered South Africa.

The bodies of the victims were badly injured, some were identified only by their passports.

Samora Machel was identified by a piece of his beard. The body of the Mozambican president was covered by a blanket, which Botha lifted from a corner to recognize the body. Later, he was placed in a coffin to be transferred to Maputo.

Machel He died instantly when the plane crashed, according to autopsy results. She quickly suffered multiple skull fractures and injuries to her chest and abdomen.

Some members of his cabinet died on the Mozambican president’s plane, such as Transport Minister Luis Alcántara Santos; the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Carlos Lobo; a person in charge of the Defense Ministry, Fernando Joao, and the ambassadors of Zaire and Zambia in Maputo. The rest of the dead were officials of the Machel government and the security forces, as well as journalists.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.