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Durban – Another five members of the SANDF have died, this time in a helicopter crash in the Kruger National Park at the weekend, just days after 13 of their comrades died in action in the Central African Republic. <\/p>\n
SANDF spokesman Brigadier-General Xolani Mabanga said on Sunday the scheduled aerial patrol was part of Operation Rhino, an anti-rhino-poaching initiative. <\/p>\n
The Agusta A109 light utility helicopter crashed in a bushy area at about 7pm on Saturday. <\/p>\n
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A pilot and flight engineer based in KwaZulu-Natal were among those killed. <\/p>\n
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Mabanga said the names of those who died would be released once their families had been notified. <\/p>\n
The Mercury has established that one of the dead was Captain Mzi Chabalala, a pilot who had moved to KZN from Orkney in North West. <\/p>\n
The other was flight engineer Gene Paul Ruiters, formerly of Bloemfontein, who recently joined 15 Squadron, which is based at the old Durban airport. <\/p>\n
According the SA Air Force website, the Agusta A109 replaced the old Alouette III with the first helicopters coming into service in 2005. <\/p>\n
\u201cCurrent planning is for the A109 LUH to be in service for 30 years,\u201d the website said. <\/p>\n
On Sunday the SA National Defence Union (Sandu) called for an inquiry into the crash <\/p>\n
\u201cSoldiers are at the forefront of fighting the scourge of rhino poaching and are doing an excellent job for which they place their lives in mortal danger daily,\u201d Sandu spokesman Pikkie Greeff said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe death of five soldiers closes a difficult week for the military. These deaths represent one of the blackest weeks in our military history.\u201d <\/p>\n
President Jacob Zuma sent his condolences, saying the country was \u201csaddened\u201d by the loss. <\/p>\n
The Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the chief of the SANDF, General Solly Shoke, and the chief of the air force, Lieutenant-General Zimpande Msimang, also expressed their condolences. <\/p>\n
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Air force members who knew Chabalala expressed shock at his death. <\/p>\n
A close friend said she was devastated. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a very outgoing person. He was such a lovely guy. I am still shocked. What a huge loss,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She recalled that she last spoke to him on Friday, about the deaths of the soldiers in the Central African Republic. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked me, \u2018What is next?\u2019 I cannot believe this has happened,\u201d she said. She added that Chabalala was a good pilot. <\/p>\n
Another member of the air force said: \u201cI am shattered. He was my best friend in the air force. We have lost a very kind man. I spoke to him just before he took off. I said goodbye to him. My heart is broken.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ruiters\u2019s family and friends could not be reached for comment. <\/p>\n
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesman Musa Mntambo said the crash was very unfortunate. <\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a short period, our anti-poaching efforts have suffered two major blows as our helicopter also went down this year.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Kruger has been targeted by poachers with 135 rhino poached since January and 188 killed nationally. <\/p>\n
lungelo.mkamba@inl.co.za<\/strong> <\/p>\n The Mercury <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Related Stories Black week for SA military: union Zuma sympathises with crash families Five die in Kruger helicopter crash Durban – Another five members of the SANDF have died, this time in a helicopter crash in the Kruger National Park at the weekend, just days after 13 of their comrades died in action in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-19044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}