The Special Report

2nd April 2000

Wings of tragedy

By Leon Berenger

Within five days two Antonov planes have crashed, the latest being at Talawa, Anuradhapura. The victims this time were war weary soldiers going home, with their pay packets and the Ukrainian crew

The stench of burning corpses filled the air, deep inside the teak forest of Talawa in Anuradhpura, where earlier in the day the Ukraine-built Antonov aircraft had fallen and exploded into a massive fire ball, burning alive the 40 passengers and crew.

It was around 11.45 am when the AN 26, with thick black smoke bellowing from the left engine was first sighted by villagers, flying dangerously low and then seconds later it tore into the ground and exploded in a series of loud blasts sending the aircraft into smithereens.

Inside the ill-fated aircraft were 23 soldiers, 11 navy personnel, two policemen, and the four-member all-Russian crew.

The police and security force personnel on board, with their monthly pay packets stashed safely away, were returning from the fiery battlefields of the north to their homes in the south and elsewhere in the country.

Some of them were returning to attend funerals of their family members. Some were perhaps thinking about enjoying the forthcoming Sinhala and Tamil New Year with their families and loved ones when the plane crashed and exploded.

Those on board did not stand a chance, and many of them were burnt out of recognition.

Eye witnesses say that it would have been a horrific experience for the victims because they probably would have seen the fire and would have known the plane was losing control. When the aircraft crashed, it was just three minutes from landing at the runway of the nearby Anuradhapura Airport.

Meanwhile in the aftermath of the crash, there were conflicting reports regarding it, with police, security force officials and civilians who claim they saw the dying moments of the ill-fated Antonov giving different versions.

Airforce officials maintain that the pilot had radioed ground control and told them of a fire raging close to the engine on the left of the plane, while there are those who are convinced that the aircraft had been hit by LTTE fire shortly after leaving the Palaly Military Base. "The pilots who spoke in faltering English never reported enemy activity, but said that a fire had broken out," one senior airforce official who was at the crash site told The Sunday Times.

"It's too early to come to any conclusions although every aspect and theory will be checked and doubled checked. We are not ruling out even the possibility of an LTTE hand", he said.

"There is also the possibility that the pilots were searching for a water source on which they had hoped to land the aircraft with the belief it would cushion the fall. There is a huge water tank close to the crash site which might have caught the pilot's eye," the official surmised.

Villagers who had seen the plane in distress spoke of a huge fireball that plunged into the teak forest sending men, women and children bolting for cover from their chena cultivations.

"It seemed that the whole place was on fire. We tried to approach the scene but were forced back owing to the intensity of the heat, and the crackling of hot metal. There were no signs of life whatsoever, not even a single groan or scream although we knew there were many human corpses strewn around with the plane's debris", Nirmala Piyadarshini said.

"Moments later an airforce helicopter arrived and hovered above. overhead. I thought it was going to land but then it just swerved and roared back towards the Anuradhapura airport.

"It was only after this that the first rescue teams arrived on the scene, along with ambulances and fire brigades. The rescue teams had to wait for about an hour for the raging inferno to subside before they moved in," Piyadarshini said.

Amidst the ghastly sight of littered burnt-out corpses were also personal belongings of the victims. There was a letter from a mother to a son, a romantic poem written to a lover and several diaries with descriptions of the ongoing fighting in the Wanni and the north.

There were also hundreds of currency notes strewn all over the place. "The money was from the pay packets that the victims were probably holding on to as the plane went down," Liyanage Douglas who was among the first to witness the carnage said. Among the unfortunate victims on board the ill-fated Antonov was an army officer rushing home to attend the funeral of his kid brother who was killed while engaging the LTTE at Elephant Pass the previous day.

Meanwhile joining the rescue team and investigators on the spot were a team of experts from Russia who were already in the country to help probe a similar crash at Kadirana in Negombo, close to the BIA last Friday.

The flight recorder (black box) which was found intact is set to throw more light on the final moments of the ill-fated aircraft. It will also ascertain the exact communication between the plane's crew and ground control at Anuradhapura.

Police are also looking into reports that there was a brief case containing a large sum of money on board, but up to yesterday it had not been found even though most of the debris had been removed.

For the moment however they could only sift through the debris and try to figure out what went wrong, as it was the second Antonov plane to be destroyed under unexplained circumstances inside five days.

Why and how?

The Air Force has appointed a high-level committee to probe Thursday's aircrash.

"This is a routine procedure, a military spokesman said.

He added that every possible angle will be looked in to, ascertain the cause of the crash, but refused to elaborate saying more time was needed to come to a conclusion.

It's show time once again!

And it was all happening again this Thursday at Talawa too, only this time they appeared to be more organised than at Kadirana Negombo.

No, they were not a part of the rescue team or investigating officers, but were the hordes of curious onlookers, eager for a peep into another's untimely death and perhaps carry that memory all the way to the family dinner table that night.

Yes, they were all there, both young and old and some dressed in their Sunday best, some cradling little infants in their arms while others gingerly held on to water bottles to quench their thirst during the long trek to the scene of the crash.

The side show had begun at Talawa.

Thousands of men, women and children from the surrounding villages and towns were all rushing to the scene of the tragedy.

Many came on pedal cycles, motorcycles, tractors and whatever available transport while others were rushing to the site on foot, many dragging their tiny charges along not wanting to be left behind.

Careless parents were exposing their infants to an environment that was increasingly becoming polluted with stale human blood and tissues while rescue team veterans at the scene had their noses covered with hankerchiefs.

Crowd control was zero, and the police as they had shown in the past were among the curious onlookers. As if to rub salt to freshly open wounds two vendors had the audacity to sell ice cream close to the scene tempting many to quench their thirst under the stifling heat.

And so the carnival went on and on, long after dusk, probably up to the time the next of kin of the fallen security force personnel were being given the grim news of the fate of their loved sons, brothers and husbands.

However there were also onlookers who had genuine concerns such as Sanjay Ekanayake, who had two brothers employed as pilots for the same company.

He was anxious to know the nationality of the crew, and when he was informed that the pilots were all fair-skinned, he sighed with relief and left the area.

The people who had thronged the area seemed to be ignorant of the fact that they were only adding to the confusion, panic and also hampering rescue operations.

All this only amounts to the fact that the people of this country who have been forced to witness a high degree of violence in the form of bombings and suicide attacks have apparently come to acknowledge that violent deaths, either by accident or design is a part of their day to day life and just cannot be missed.

U.S. State Department Report on Sri Lanka

Inside the glass house

Editorial/ Opinion Contents