By Celani Sikhakhane
- Three young students died in a light aircraft crash in Mooi River after bad weather and a fuel shortage caused an emergency landing.
- Families performed spiritual rituals at the crash site to collect their spirits and take them home for burial this weekend.
It was a heartbreaking moment as families of three young people who died in a light aircraft crash arrived at the scene in Mooi River to perform sacred rituals and collect their spirits to take them home.
The families went to the crash site on Thursday afternoon to perform the spiritual tradition after collecting their bodies from the government mortuary in Greytown, outside Pietermaritzburg.
The victims were a pilot and medical students with bright futures ahead of them. They were Lwazi Msane, 23, a student pilot, Sphesihle Buthelezi, 20, a medical student, and Nqobile Biyela, 23, a student pilot.
Msane, Biyela and Buthelezi had left Virginia Airport on Sunday as part of a group of three planes heading to Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria. They had planned to refuel in Ladysmith, but ran into problems and were sent to the nearby Greytown Airport.
Around Ladysmith, bad weather, poor visibility and low fuel began to cause trouble. Two of the planes crashed while the third managed to land safely. The second plane, a Piper Cherokee, made an emergency crash-landing into thick sugarcane fields near Greytown.
The dead students’ plane was found in Mooi River after intensive search efforts for the missing plane throughout Monday.
On Thursday, their bodies were taken to a well-trained postmortem doctor in Richardsbay, and they were later returned to Greytown Legal Medico Mortuary, which is owned by the provincial government Department of Health.
Department of Transport and Human Settlement spokesperson Ndabezinhle Sibiya said all the dead will be buried in their home towns of uMlazi, which is the home of student pilot Nqobile Biyela, Nkandla is the home of Sphesihle Buthelezi, who was a medical student, and Dundee is the home of Lwazi Msane, who was also a student pilot who had dreams of owning a fleet of light aircraft.
“Families have said they want to bury their loved ones this weekend. They said they will be able to finish preparations for the funerals once they have the postmortem results. As you all know, the giving out of death certificates depends on the postmortem,” said Sibiya.
Pictured above: KZN youngsters who died in Mooi River after their light aircraft had bad weather and fuel shortage. Their names are Sphesihle Buthelezi who was a medical student, Lwazi Msane who was a pilot student and Nqobile Biyela who was also a pilot student.
Image source: Supplied
