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South African Airways Flight 295, flown by a Boeing 747 named ''Helderberg'' was a commercial flight that suffered a catastrophic in-flight fire in the cargo area and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius on 28 November 1987, killing everyone on board. An extensive salvage operation was mounted to try to recover the flight data recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of —the deepest successful salvage operation ever conducted. The official inquiry, headed by Judge Cecil Margo, was unable to determine the cause of the fire, leading to a number of conspiracy theories being advanced in the following years. ==History of the flight== South African Airways Flight 295 was a Boeing 747-244B Combi, named ''The Helderberg'' (registration ZS-SAS; serial number 22171) that was delivered to the airline in 1980. The aircraft took off on 27 November 1987 from Taipei Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, on a flight to Johannesburg via Mauritius. Dawie Uys served as the captain of the flight.〔"(SAA 'murdered people aboard Helderberg' )." ''IOL''.〕 The Boeing 747-244B Combi is a variant of the aircraft that permits the mixing of passengers and airfreight on the main deck according to load factors on any given route and Class B cargo compartment regulations. Flight 295 had 140 passengers and six pallets of cargo on the main deck. The master waybills stated that of baggage and cargo were loaded on the plane.〔"Fanning the Flames." ("Cargo Conspiracy" and "Mystery Fire") ''Mayday''.〕 A Taiwanese customs official performed a surprise inspection of some of the cargo; he did not find any cargo that could be characterised as suspicious.〔 The flight crew consisted of 49-year-old Captain Dawie Uys (who had 13,843 flight hours), 36-year-old First Officer David Attwell (who had 7,362 flight hours), 37-year-old Relief First Officer Geoffrey Birchall (who had 8,749 flight hours), 45-year-old Flight Engineer Giuseppe "Joe" Bellagarda (who had 7,804 flight hours), and 34-year-old Relief Flight Engineer Alan Daniel (who had 1,595 flight hours). Thirty-four minutes after departure, the flight contacted Hong Kong air traffic control to obtain clearance from waypoint ELATO () to ISBAN. A position report was made over ELATO at 15:03:25, followed by waypoints SUNEK at 15:53:52, ADMARK at 16:09:54 and SUKAR () at 16:34:47. The aircraft made a routine report to the South African Airways base at Jan Smuts (ZUR) at 15:55:18. At some point during the flight, a fire developed in the cargo section on the main deck; the fire was probably not extinguished before impact. The 'smoke evacuation' checklist calls for the aircraft to be depressurised, and for two of the cabin doors to be opened. No evidence exists that the checklist was followed, or the doors opened. A crew member might have gone into the cargo hold to try to fight the fire. A charged fire extinguisher was later recovered from the wreckage on which investigators found molten metal.〔 The following communication was recorded with Mauritius air traffic control, located at Plaisance Airport: After communication of flight 295 is lost for 36 minutes, at 00:44 (04:44 local time), Air Traffic Control at Mauritius formally declared an emergency.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「South African Airways Flight 295」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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