In this accident, two people were killed - the pilot and one crew member. Apparently the plane was trying to make it to the runway of Francistown Airport when it crashed. The aircraft had initially attempted to land and was prevented by the prevailing fog over the runway.
The aircraft immediately disappeared from the radar and lost contact with the control tower. Immediately, Francistown Airport authorities contacted all the neighbouring airports and none of them reported sighting or communication by the crew. The aircraft and the pilot were frequent flyers to Francistown Airport and very familiar with the approaches and procedures. Amazingly, the plane did not trigger an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT). According to information from ICAO, the instrument is activated upon impact and it would immediately send a signal via satellite to the three stations of Cape Town, Paris and London. These three locations have facilities to monitor aviation activities in this part of the world and they would immediately contact Francistown Airport and give them the exact coordinates of the crash site. The failure of the ELT will become crucial in the investigation. The wreckage of the plane was found in the bush near the Orapa-Francistown road where many people abandoned their cars to try and attend to the accident. The incident invoked feelings of the country's worst air crash in the country that occurred in 1974 in Francistown. It involved a Douglas C54E aircraft owned by Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WENELA). The four-engine plane was en-route to Lilongwe, Malawi carrying 80 passengers and four crew members. According to information on the report by the Board of Enquiry: "The accident was caused by increasing loss of power on all four engines occurring soon after take-off due to contaminated fuel leading to massive overheating, detonation, and inability to maintain height". Only one crew member and five passengers survived the crash. Atomic Mosinyi, who was a police officer when the event took place, says that this was the most traumatising experience of his entire career spanning 32 years. He was one of the first police officers to arrive at the scene. He says the air was filled with the pungent smell of human flesh and because the bodies were still burning when they arrived at the scene, the smell stuck to their clothes. "Monna re feditse beke yotlhe re nkga segau ebile re sa batle go ja nama. (We spent the whole week smelling with the charred remains and we had no desire for meat)," he says. The bodies were later interred at a mass funeral at the Francistown Riverside Cemetery in coffins provided by government of Botswana. The incident touched the feelings of every resident of Francistown.
