Nearly 60 years after South African Airways Vickers Viscount Rietbok plunged into the Indian Ocean near East London on 13 March 1967, the families of its 25 victims still do not know what brought the aircraft down, where the remains of those aboard lie, or whether the crash was ever honestly investigated. Twenty passengers and five crew members died. No bodies were ever officially recovered, no wreckage was fully examined, and no definitive cause was established.
Robyn Lichter was 11 years old when her father, Joseph Blankfield, a prominent Johannesburg businessman and plastics manufacturer, boarded the flight from Port Elizabeth. She remembers driving with her mother Myra, then 45, and her brothers Mark, 15, and Paul, nine, to Jan Smuts Airport in their new yellow Pontiac to collect him. Instead, they were ushered into an office and told the plane had crashed. Her mother remained tormented by the uncertainty until her death at 94.
Now 71 and based in Melbourne, Lichter stood before the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into stopped Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigations and prosecutions on Friday, 4 September, presenting a detailed submission on behalf of the families of all 25 people aboard and that of SAA investigator Captain James Boyd, who died mysteriously shortly after the crash. “The last two years have spurred me to intense investigation that’s revealed the horrific truth of an apartheid crime,” she told the SA Jewish Report. “The handling of the bodies, no dignity for victims or families were haunting. I believe in our duty as Jews to bear witness and to keep their memory alive.”
Four of the passengers were Jewish: Blankfield, Audrey Rosenthal, Max Melmed, and Norman Sosnow. The presence of two particular passengers on the small domestic flight has fuelled suspicions among the families. One was Professor Johannes Petrus van Schalkwyk Bruwer, an African Affairs adviser, speechwriter, and close friend of prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, and a senior figure in the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond. Verwoerd had been assassinated six months earlier. According to evidence gathered by the families, Bruwer had become increasingly disillusioned with apartheid and believed white minority rule could not endure. The other was Rosenthal, a Jewish American academic and anti-apartheid activist travelling clandestinely through South Africa, gathering information for the banned International Defence and Aid Fund, which supported political prisoners and their families. She was reportedly under surveillance.
The official inquiry, headed by Justice Cecil Margo, could not determine the cause of the crash, though it raised the possibility that Captain Benjamin Lipawsky had suffered a heart attack and control was lost. There was no black box. From the beginning, according to Lichter, a shroud of silence enveloped the investigation and all involved were sworn to secrecy.
What followed, the families argue, was a pattern of contradictions that has never been resolved. On the night of the crash, an official report indicated that 21 bodies had been found, with numerous accounts circulating to that effect before the story changed and families were told no bodies had been recovered. At least two families, including Bruwer’s, were allegedly contacted and told to come and identify their loved ones, only to be turned away. A torso reportedly washed ashore, underwent a post-mortem, and was buried in an unmarked grave. Another badly damaged body reportedly washed up in Queensbury Bay. A third, believed to be that of British Jewish passenger Norman Sosnow, 23, was reportedly found floating off the East London coast, with no official documentation indicating what then happened to his remains.
Former naval personnel claimed the aircraft itself had been located. A former navy diver later said the wreck was found and an underwater camera showed passengers still strapped into their seats. The official record, by contrast, stated that very little wreckage was recovered and the main wreck could not be reached. Former Security Branch policeman and author Alan Elsdon alleged that the disaster was “the result of calculated foul play, deliberately obscured by the government.” His allegations remain unproven, but his affidavit is among the material relied upon by those seeking a renewed investigation.
Lichter told the commission the families believe State Security was involved and that the incident was shrouded in secrecy, with inconsistencies, irregularities, and missing files and documents. “This was an apartheid-era crime and we, the victims’ family members, believe there was a definite cover-up,” she said. “We don’t know what brought the plane down. All we want is an investigation to uncover the truth.”
Her hope, as presented to the commission, is for the crash to be recognised as an apartheid-era crime and for the case to be referred to a dedicated prosecutor at the National Prosecuting Authority. While none of the strands of evidence individually or collectively proves sabotage, the families argue they demonstrate why the Rietbok crash cannot simply be consigned to history as a settled aviation accident. Whether the commission agrees, and what referral, if any, follows, remains to be seen.