Garang crash resulted from pilot error, says report

Pilot error caused the helicopter crash in which Sudan's First Vice President John Garang was killed last year, a report prepared by Ugandan experts who investigated the cause of the accident said on Tuesday.

"The captain failed to maintain horizontal and vertical situational awareness of the helicopter's proximity to the surrounding terrain," John Nasasira, Uganda's Works and Transport minister, told a news conference while releasing the report on Tuesday.

"We think the pilot was trying to keep below the clouds because of bad weather, yet he was coming into high terrain," he added. The Mi-172 military helicopter was Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's official chopper. Garang was travelling to southern Sudan after a meeting with Museveni.

Garang died in the crash on 30 July 2005, just three weeks after he was inaugurated as first vice president of Sudan and six months after the long-drawn-out war between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the government of Sudan ended with the signing of the peace agreement in Nairobi, Kenya.

Thirteen other people traveling with him also died. Nasasira said Ugandan authorities would spend another one month looking into why the pilot opted to fly low "yet he was trained to fly in bad weather using instruments".

"We need to know what was going on in the crew's minds to fly at altitude of 5,500 ft above sea level and yet Zulia mountain ranges on his flight path which were clearly marked showed higher altitude of over 6,000ft," said the minister.

Born in 1945, Garang was a Christian of Dinka descent who led the SPLM/A rebellion from 1983 after the southerners took up arms against the northern-based authorities to demand greater autonomy.

His death sparked off violent riots in which at least 130 people lost their lives. Garang was replaced as First Vice President by the SPLM/A's number two, Salva Kiir Mayardit, on 11 August, 2005. Kiir, while not as widely known among Sudanese, was one of the founders of the SPLM/A and rose to become its military commander.