Account of the survivors after Samora Machel's plane crash

Vladimir Novosselov, a surviving member of the Soviet crew, felt that the crash was not an accident. He maintained that the Soviet crew of the Presidential plane was highly experienced. "The pilot, Yuri Novodran, had been flying for 25 years. The other crew members - co-pilot Igor Kartamichev, navigator Andrei Kudriachov and radio operator Anatoli Choulipov - were also very experienced."

"At about six o'clock in the evening the President left Lusaka. The plane gained height and headed towards Maputo. When we were flying over Zambia, the altimeter showed 11,400 metres. When we crossed the Mocambican frontier, the Tupolev descended to 10,600 metres. Novodron ordered contact to be made with Maputo Airport, requesting authorisation to land. The airport services granted the request.Weather conditions were favourable for the flight.

Maputo was ahead and to the left of the left of the pilots. To the right, and very close, was the Mozambique-South African border. We were gradually descending. The altitude was 5,200 metres. Then we dropped to 3,000 metres. We were 113 kilometres away from Maputo. Novodran switched off the autopilot and took over the manual controls. He was an excellent pilot. Even navigator Kudriachov and radio operator Choulipov, who have spent around 14,000 hours in the air, did not know a more experienced captain than Novodran. We descended to less than a thousand metres. The last thing I remember was that the altimeter was reading 970 metres - after that, nothing."

Another survivor of the crash was Machel's bodyguard, Fernando Maniel João. He was lucky to survive and had the least serious injuries. At midnight he managed to contact the Komatiepoort police from the phone of a mission post. He requested the Komatiepoort police to contact Mozambique and inform them of the crash, but the Mozambican government was only officially informed of the disaster by the South African authorities at 6:50 on the following day.

Another survivor, Almeido Pedro, said that the South African police appeared on the scene of the crash at about 2:00 in the morning of Monday 20 October (four and a half hours after the crash). "The police 'didn't go to the aid of the people who were crying out. There were people who died for lack of assistance." Pedro said he saw "all of them collecting papers, diplomatic bags, dollars. They took lots of things." This was confirmed by João: "The South Africans were not at all concerned with the lives of the wounded. They were just messing around with the other things there." He said he became angry with the South Africans for refusing to take the wounded to hospital. He spoke to a police inspector, who finally ordered helicopters and medical staff to come and take the injured to the hospital in Nelspruit. The first of the injured arrived at Nelspruit at 8:00, almost 11 hours after the crash.

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