Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding

Date: 9 Jul 1987
Updated: 22 Aug 2019

Mozambique and the Soviet Union rejected the findings of the Margo Commission, led by Justice Cecil Margo. The commission was instituted to investigate into the aircraft crash in which President Samora Machel of Mozambique had been killed. The commission found that the accident had been caused by an error of the crew and that the aircraft had not been lured off course by a decoy beacon as was alleged. Machel was on his way back from an international meeting in Malawi in the presidential Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft when the plane crashed in the Lebombo Mountains, near Mbuzini. Sources: Wallis, F. (2000). Nuusdagboek: feite en fratse oor 1000 jaar, Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau. Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.

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South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012699

South African History Online (2011) 'Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012699 (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

South African History Online, Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012699, (accessed 21 September 2026).

"Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012699. Accessed 21 Sept. 2026.

South African History Online. "Mozambique and Soviet Union reject Margo Commission’s finding." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012699.