Samora Machel - The Fatal Aircrash and Investigations

The Fatal Aircrash and Investigations

On October 19, 1986 Samora Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, in the presidential Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft, when the plane crashed in the Lebombo Mountains, near Mbuzini, South-Africa. There were ten survivors, but President Machel and thirty-three others died, including ministers and officials of the Mozambique government.

The Margo Commission, set up by the South African government, but which included high-level international representation, investigated the incident and concluded that the accident was caused by pilot error. Despite the acceptance of its findings by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the report was rejected by the Mozambican and Soviet governments. The latter submitted a minority report suggesting that the aircraft was intentionally lured off course by a decoy radio navigation beacon set up specifically for this purpose by the South Africans. Speculation about the accident has therefore continued to the present day, particularly in Mozambique.

Hans Louw, a Civil Cooperation Bureau operative, claims to have assisted in Machel's death. Pik Botha, South African foreign affairs minister at the time, who later joined the ANC, said that the investigation into the plane crash should be re-opened.

The Portuguese journalist José Milhazes, who lives in Moscow since 1977 and currently works for the Portuguese newspaper Público and as a correspondent for the Portuguese television chain SIC, sustains that the plane crash had nothing to do with any attempt or any mechanical failure, but was due to several errors of the Russian crew (including the pilot), who, instead of diligently performing their duties, were busy with futile things, like sharing alcoholic and soft drinks unavailable in Mozambique that they had had the possibility to bring from Zambia. In Milhazes' opinion, both the Soviet and the Mozambican authorities had an interest to spread the thesis of an attempt by the South-African regime: the Soviets wanted to safeguard their reputation (exempting the plane and the crew from any responsibility), the Mozambicans wanted to create a hero.

In 2007, however, Jacinto Veloso, one of Machel's most unconditional supporters within Frelimo, had sustained in his memoirs that Machel's death was due to a conspiracy between the South African and the Soviet secret services, both of which had reasons to get rid of him.

According to Veloso, the Soviet ambassador once asked the President for an audience to convey the USSR's concern about Mozambique's apparent "sliding away" towards the West, to which Machel supposedly replied "Vai à merda!" (Eat shit!). Having then commanded the interpreter to translate, he left the room. Convinced that Machel had irrevocably moved away from their orbit, the Soviets allegedly did not hesitate to sacrifice the pilot and the whole crew of their own plane.