Garang crash report blames pilot error- Uganda

April 18, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Pilot error was to blame for the helicopter crash that killed Sudanese First Vice President John Garang last year as he flew home from Uganda, the final report into the accident by Uganda and Sudan said on Tuesday.

“We think the pilot was trying to keep below the clouds because of bad weather, yet he was coming into high terrain,” Ugandan Works Minister John Nasasira told reporters in Kampala while releasing the report.

Garang was travelling in Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s helicopter last July when it crashed into a hill in southern Sudan, killing all 14 passengers.

Nasasira said Uganda would spend another month or two looking into why the pilot had flown at low altitude, and why he had not relied on his instruments in low visibility.

“We need to know what was going on in the crew’s minds to fly so low,” he said, adding that the helicopter had been flying at about 5,500 feet amid 6,000-feet peaks.

There was no mention of foul play in the report, which also ruled out mechanical failure in the crash.

Garang’s death triggered a wave of sectarian violence in neighbouring Sudan, where many in the former rebel’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement suspected a conspiracy.

A southerner, Garang fought a bitter civil war against the Islamist northern government for more than two decades which claimed 2 million lives.

He signed a deal to end Africa’s longest civil war last year to form a new coalition government and paving the way for democratic transformation and wealth sharing.

(Reuters)