Ugandan govt names team to probe Garang’s helicopter crash

KAMPALA, Aug 3, 2005 (Xinhua) — The Ugandan government has named three aviation experts to investigate the tragic helicopter crash that killed former Sudanese first vice president John Garang.

Ugandan Minister of Works, Housing and Communication John Nasasira was quoted by local press on Wednesday naming the team members Ahmed Sebuliba Busulwa, a principal airworthiness surveyor with Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Barry Kashambo, a senior airworthiness surveyor with CAA and Pascal Mangeni, a flight engineer on helicopters M1-17 and M1-172 with the Uganda People’s Defense Force/Air Force.

According to the minister, the trio left for southern Sudan on Tuesday and would be joined by their counterparts from Sudan and other countries and international organizations.

Meanwhile, Ugandan Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi has warned politicians against politicizing the death of John Garang.

While addressing parliament on Tuesday during a motion to honor Garang, Nsibambi said that some people are making cheap political statements that Garang’s death was engineered.

He noted that these people should apologize to God, Garang’s relatives and all Ugandans.

Minister Nasasira, while at parliament, asked opposition politicians against using the accident to tarnish Uganda’s image, saying the helicopter in which Garang crashed in was in good conditions.

He noted that the CAA had not stopped Garang from traveling on the fateful day as alleged, adding that all procedures involved in flying VIPs were followed.

He was reacting to a claim by opposition politicians that the CAA did not follow the international flight procedures for VIPs in the evenings.

Garang died in a tragic helicopter crash while flying back to Sudan from Uganda after meeting President Yoweri Museveni.

It is reported that Uganda’s presidential helicopter AF 605 Type MI-172 (VIP version) hit a rock and crashed owing to bad weather south of New Site on the Uganda-Sudan border.