GRASKOP – Almost 20 aircraft took to the sky in the Mariepskop area on Sunday in search for an aeroplane piloted by the young Mr Jannes Scheepers (23), that went missing on Friday.
Late Sunday afternoon the plane’s wreckage was spotted and hours later he was declared dead on the scene. It brought to an end a weekend of uncertainty and worry for his family whose ordeal started on Friday afternoon when it was first discovered that something was seriously wrong when he didn’t arrive at his place of work.
He was the son of well-known local oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Dr Pieter Scheepers, but resided in Johannesburg where he worked for an aviation company. He was scheduled to arrive for work only later on Friday but never pitched.
The previous night he phoned his stepbrother, Mr Luan van Kraayenburg – who is also a licensed pilot – and asked to meet him at Wonderboom Airport “to go for a joyride”. Van Kraayenburg couldn’t make it and Scheepers undertook a solo flight. He didn’t submit a flight plan, probably because there were no passengers on board, and took off at about 06:00 in a Beechcraft Bonanza F33A aircraft.
“The last radar point of the aircraft was in the area of Loskop Dam near Middelburg,” Mr Anton Strydom, a volunteer of the Off Road Rescue Unit (Orru), explained: “He could have turned off the transponder after this or he could have flown so low that the signal couldn’t be picked up from there.” A search team comprising various members of Mpumalanga police’s dog unit, pilots of Working on Fire, the South African Air Force and Orru arrived at Middelburg early Saturday morning.
“The area was searched on foot and from the air, but obviously to no avail,” Strydom said. In the meantime, police had apparently applied for an Article 205 to force the cellphone company, Cell C, to release the GPS coordinates signalled from Scheepers’ iPhone.
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“It was then established that Scheepers’ cellphone last had signal in the vicinity of the Mariepskop mountains near Graskop,” Strydom added. Van Kraayenburg also had a look on Scheepers’ laptop to see if he could establish where his stepbrother might have been heading to and came across the flight plan which had never been submitted.
The team withdrew from Middelburg and arrived at Graskop on Sunday at about 11:00. The area was fine combed from the air and the wreck was spotted by Mr Victor Picoto and Mr Kobus de Wet at about 16:30. WO Danie Theron of the dog unit at White River, Strydom and Mr Jakes Kruger, also of Orru, were dropped in the mountains at about 17:20. They had to climb 3,5 kilometres to the point of impact. They took photos of the scene and were granted permission by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to remove Scheepers’ body.
They then had to climb all the way down the rocky terrain with the body and were picked up at the nearest road after 20:00. Theron returned to the scene with officials of CAA yesterday morning.
The scene of the accident was very close to that of another plane crash Lowvelder reported on in August 2013 in which two pilots from New Zealand – Mr Richard Primrose (63) and Mr John Walton (47) – had died. “The scene of the accident in which Scheepers died was a mere two to three kilometres from that one. It was the same mountains, the same gorge,” Strydom recalled as he also assisted in the rescue operation two years ago.
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It has since come to light that the aircraft in which Scheepers died had been involved in an accident before. On September 10, 2000, it had to perform an emergency landing near Lanseria Airport.
According to an accident report by the CAA, the pilot and three passengers were on a private flight from Gaborone (Botswana) to Lanseria.
“While positioned on a right downwind for Runway 35 at Lanseria, at 5 500 feet above ground level the pilot felt a loss of power. She went through her engine-failure procedure, whereafter she informed the control tower that she was experiencing problems.
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“The aircraft was descending fast and it was decided to execute a forced landing. This was done approximately one kilometre from the threshold of Runway 35 in an open field. The aircraft came to a halt approximately 50 metres from the first point of impact. Nobody was injured in the accident.” The CAA ruled that the probable cause of the engine not delivering full power (“splattering”) could be attributed to the fact that the fuel/air mixture was set too lean.”
Since the news of Scheepers’ sudden passing became known, messages of condolences have been shared on family members’ Facebook pages.
Picoto’s son, Mr Angelo Picoto who is also a pilot, posted the following on Van Kraayenburg’s page: “My condolences go out today to Luan and his family for their loss, may God be with you guys in this hard time, RIP fellow pilot.
“Because I fly, I laugh more than other men. I look up an see more than they, I know how the clouds feel. What it’s like to have the blue in my lap, to look down on birds, to feel freedom in a thing called the stick. Who but I can slice between God’s billowed legs, Who else has seen the unclimbed peaks? The rainbow’s secret? The real reason birds sing? Because I fly, I envy no man on earth.”
Scheepers also leaves behind his mother, Dr Antoinette Ackerman and sister, Ms Andrea Scheepers. None of the CAA spokesmen were available for comment at the time of going to print.
