Sharks eat plane crash victims

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 10

Sharks eat plane crash victims

NZPA-Reuter Port Louis

Rescuers described yesterday how they were sickened by the sight of mutilations suffered by people killed when a South African airliner crashed into, sharkinfested waters off Mauritius.

“It was a dreadful sight When I saw those mutilated bodies I asked myself whether people could die in such a way,” a health and safety officer, Anoop Ramgoolam, said on local television.

Mr Ramgoolam’s tug brought five bodies ashore from the site where the Boeing 747 crashed into the Indian Ocean on Saturday, killing all 160 people aboard. Searchers combing the area near the island reported finding nine bodies and said sharks had been feeding on some of the corpses.

Mr Ramgoolam said: “Human remains were floating everywhere. ’lt was a sickening sight.” On Monday, the South African Airways chief executive, Gert Van der Veer, said the pilot of the stricken aircraft reported trouble 15 minutes before contact was lost.

He said Captain Dawie Uys had reported an emergency far earlier than previously believed. S.A.A. at first said Captain Uys had reported smoke in the aircraft and then, immediately after, contact was lost Mr Van der Veer said Captain Uys had asked the control tower in Mauritius to clear him for a sharp drop from his cruising altitude of 10,000 metres to 4250 metres,