Experts begin analyzing Garang crash chopper black box in Russia

By Alfred Wasike, The New Vision.

Aug 25, 2005 (Moscow) — Analysis to recover voices in the cockpit recorder and flight data systems (black boxes) of the presidential Mi-172 helicopter in which Sudan’s First Vice- President Dr John Garang and 12 other people perished on 30 July, has started in Moscow, where the aircraft was manufactured and had been overhauled.

Aeronautics and avionics experts from Uganda, Khartoum, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, the US and Kenya have converged with their Russian colleagues to study the aircraft parts for information on the likely cause of the crash in the Zuria mountain ranges.

The foreign affairs ministry announced last evening that the 12-member team had Ugandans led by Maj-Gen James Kazini, Sudanese led by Al-Haj al-Khayr Ahmad and SPLA led by Maj-Gen Gier Aluong. “The experts, with their counterparts from Russia, will work hand in hand to recover voices in cockpit recorder and flight data systems. The analysis of these two has started,” the ministry said.