How Did Samora Machel Die in the Mbuzini Tu-134 Crash 40 Years Ago?

Quick answer: On the night of 19 October 1986, a Tupolev Tu-134 carrying Mozambique's President Samora Machel flew into a hillside at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa, killing 34 of the 44 people on board. Forty years on, the cause remains disputed: South Africa's official inquiry blamed crew error, while the Soviet delegation argued a false navigation beacon lured the aircraft off course.

Key facts

• What: Tupolev Tu-134A aircraft crash (registration C9-CAA)
• When: 19 October 1986, impact at 21:21:39 local time
• Where: Mbuzini, South Africa, about 150 metres from the Mozambican border and about 65 km from Maputo
• Route: Mbala, Zambia, to Maputo, Mozambique
• On board: 44 people — 35 passengers and 9 crew
• Killed: 34 in the crash, including President Samora Machel; one survivor later died, bringing the total deaths to 35
• Survivors: 10, including the Soviet flight engineer

What happened

That day Machel had flown to Mbala in northern Zambia for a summit with regional leaders. The party left Mbala at 18:38 for the non-stop flight home, due in Maputo at 21:25. The jet cruised at 35,000 feet, then began its descent towards the capital in the dark.

At about 21:10 the Tu-134 turned right for almost a minute, swinging its heading from 184 to 221 degrees. Instead of following the coast down to Maputo, it was now pointing inland, towards the hills on the South African side of the border. The crew had been cleared to 3,000 feet and told not to go lower until they could see the runway lights.

They kept descending. The cockpit voice recorder captured the captain's confusion: "There is no Maputo." The ground proximity warning sounded and kept sounding for about 32 seconds. The captain's only response, according to the inquiry, was an exclamation and a slight pull on the controls. In the last seconds the navigator said there were no beacons to be found, and the captain answered that there was no ILS either. Then the left wing struck a tree and the aircraft hit the ground.

The night was clear over the Lebombo Mountains, with ten kilometres visibility and scattered cloud. The crew had been looking for the lights of Maputo. Maputo was 65 kilometres away.

The aircraft, C9-CAA, was a Tu-134A built in August 1980 with about 1,105 flying hours. It was flown by a Soviet-lent crew: Captain Yuri Novodran, First Officer Igor Kartamyshev, navigator Oleg Kudryashov, flight engineer Vladimir Novoselov and radio operator Anatoly Shulipov. Four Mozambican cabin crew looked after the passengers.

The two explanations

South Africa, then under apartheid and openly hostile to Machel's government, led the investigation. Its Margo Commission concluded the crew had descended below the minimum safe altitude in darkness, under visual rules, and ignored the ground proximity warning. It put the fatal turn down to the navigator's use of the autopilot, and thought it probable that a VOR receiver had been tuned by mistake to the beacon at Matsapa in Swaziland, on 112.3 MHz, instead of Maputo's 112.7 MHz.

The Soviet delegation rejected that. It argued that a false VOR beacon had lured the jet off course on purpose, and that an earlier warning in the cockpit had been triggered by the decoy signal. Mozambique also refused to accept the findings. In 2001, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission said the possibility of a false beacon needed further investigation and found no conclusive evidence either way.

Suspicion of South African involvement has never gone away. South African investigators later said they found no evidence of complicity, in 2003 and again in 2008. No decoy beacon has ever been found. South Africa's foreign minister in 1986, Pik Botha, said in a 1999 public interview: "I totally reject any suggestion that I could have been a party to a decision of that nature. It is an extremely sad moment for me."

The memorial and the 40th anniversary

In 1999 Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel and President Joaquim Chissano opened a memorial at the crash site, paid for by the South African government. Mozambican architect José Forjaz designed it around 35 steel pipes, one for each person who died, which whistle when the wind blows across the hill. In 2006 it was declared a South African national heritage site.

Today, South Africa and Mozambique mark 40 years since the crash — four decades on, nobody has been able to prove exactly why the aircraft turned off course.

Frequently asked questions

How did Samora Machel die?

He was killed on 19 October 1986 when the Tupolev Tu-134 carrying him from Mbala, Zambia, to Maputo flew into a hillside at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa, after the crew lost their way in the dark.

How many people died in the Mbuzini crash?

Thirty-four of the 44 people on board were killed in the crash, including President Samora Machel. One of the ten survivors later died, bringing the total deaths to 35 — the number of steel pipes at the memorial.

What caused the crash?

The cause is still disputed. South Africa's Margo Commission blamed crew error: the crew descended below the minimum safe altitude in darkness and ignored the ground proximity warning. The Soviet delegation argued a false navigation beacon lured the aircraft off course deliberately. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found no conclusive evidence either way.

Was South Africa behind the crash?

That suspicion has never gone away, but no proof has ever been found. South African investigators said in 2003 and again in 2008 that they found no evidence of complicity, and no decoy beacon has ever been found.

Where is the memorial?

At the crash site at Mbuzini. Opened in 1999 by Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel and President Joaquim Chissano, it has 35 steel pipes designed by Mozambican architect José Forjaz, and it became a South African national heritage site in 2006.