Death
On 1 June 2002, Cronje's scheduled flight home from Johannesburg to George was grounded so he hitched a ride as the only passenger aboard a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 turboprop aircraft. Near George airport, the pilots lost visibility in clouds and were unable to land, partly due to unusable navigational equipment. While circling, the plane crashed into the Outeniqua Mountains northeast of the airport. Cronje, aged 32, and the two pilots were killed instantly.
In August 2006, an inquest into the plane crash was opened by South Africa's High Court. The inquest concluded that "the death of the deceased Wessel Johannes (Hansie) Cronje was brought about by an act or omission prima facie amounting to an offence on the part of pilots."
Theories that Cronje was murdered on the orders of a cricket betting syndicate flourished after his death and were most recently re-floated by former Nottinghamshire coach Clive Rice in the wake of the death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer in March 2007.
Read more about this topic: Hansie Cronje
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“You know, if this is Venus, or some other strange planet, we’re liable to run into some high-domed characters with green blood in their veins who’ll blast at us with their atomic death rayguns, and there we’ll be with these—these poor old-fashioned shootin’ irons.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)