The crew’s last direct contact with the ground was with controllers in Accra, Ghana, before the plane headed out over the Atlantic. On long flights from Europe to Africa, the German air force reportedly always uses double crews. Since it was originally an East German plane, the crew consisted of former East Germans. It was equipped with infrared sighting gear and cameras, but these were not in use for Saturday’s routine transport flight. The plane was normally used to transport politicians and enforce arms control accords. According to Ruehe, it passed its most recent inspection one month ago. Ruehe said the German plane was built in the former Soviet Union in 1989 and acquired from the former East German military the following year during the unification of East and West Germany. “We don’t have confirmation of that right now, but we are assuming that.” “We are presuming it went down in the Atlantic Ocean,” Sgt. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, headquartered at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, said an Air Force C-141 Starlifter cargo plane with nine people on board was on a return flight Saturday afternoon to the British territory of Ascension Island in the South Atlantic from the southwestern African nation of Namibia when it failed to arrive on schedule. And a French aircraft helping in the search reported picking up an indistinct voice giving a mayday call from the area.Ī spokeswoman for the U.S. The South African air force said a signal received from a life jacket emergency beacon was evidence there might be survivors. and German military planes with a total of 33 people on board were reported missing off the coast of southern Africa on Sunday amid indications they may have collided and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. None of their hometowns were released.U.S. Bryant, loadmaster Senior Airman Gary Bucknam, flight engineer Senior Airman Frankie L. McGuire Air Force Base identified those on the American plane as Capt. There were 12 German marines, two of their spouses and a crew of 10 aboard the German aircraft. Air Force monitors in the European command also picked up the distress signal at about the same time, South African officials said.
But Sell said it was never passed on, as required, by controllers in the central African nation of Niger.Ī French aircraft flying over the apparent crash site Sunday night picked up a faint distress signal which may have come from an automatic emergency beacon. "We have a big problem, a major problem."īuck said a flight plan for the German plane had been filed before takeoff from Germany. He told reporters such critical procedures are often absent in Africa. That's why we were not aware that the airplane was coming," said Jochen Sell, Namibia's chief air traffic officer. The German plane vanished en route from Germany to Cape Town, South Africa, and Namibian officials said they never received its flight plan. I'm not sure what the time line would be, but they would obviously inform people in the United States," said U.S. plane did not arrive at Ascension Island from Namibia as scheduled. Searchers found seats from the German plane and papers in German in two areas of the sea yesterday near where the planes may have collided, about 115 miles west of Cape Fria on the Namibian coast.Īmerican officials said they could not say why it took so long to initiate a search or what steps were taken when the U.S. Gerhard Buck said in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, which is northwest of South Africa on the continent's south Atlantic coast. "We are about to hire some divers," German air force Maj. They also want to determine why it took 24 hours before rescue officials were told the planes were missing. Military officials from Germany, the United States and South Africa -which is responsible for sea rescue operations in the area - converged on Windhoek to coordinate the search. Nine Americans and 24 Germans were missing. C-141 Starlifter and the German air force plane apparently collided and crashed Saturday, and some officials doubted much wreckage ever would be found.
The Atlantic is 3,000 feet deep in the area of Namibia's Skeleton Coast where the U.S.
Namibian officials said the probable collision site was off their radar and they didn't know the German plane was coming because they had not received a flight plan. military transport and a German plane believed to have been flying in the same air route.Īir corridors often are shared, although planes traveling in opposite directions are supposed to fly at different altitudes. WINDHOEK, Namibia - Searchers found airplane seats and a few papers yesterday, but no bodies or survivors of the apparent collision between a U.S.
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