Not sure how many here have heard of the Gabon Air disaster in 1993 in which the entire Zambian national soccer team perished in an instant, releasing a wave of emotional pain across Africa and Zambia in particular. Today, April 28 2009 marks exactly 16 years since that tragic event. To commemorate this day, I’m putting up this emotional piece written by Jay Mwamba, a Zambian journalist based in New York, who personally knew many of the players that perished on that fatefull day.
On the morning of April 28, 1993, the world awoke to catastrophic news. A military plane carrying the Zambian national football team had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after take-off from the Gabonese capital, Libreville, late the previous night killing all 30 people on board.
The disaster was unprecedented in the history of sport. Football teams and other athletes had perished in air crashes before: most infamously Italian champions Torino who lost 22 members in 1949, Manchester United with eight fatalities in 1958 and Peruvian club side Alizana with the loss of 18 players in December 1987.
But never before had a national squad been so decimated. The world was stunned. Zambia was grief-stricken. I was shattered. A week earlier, I’d spent over half an hour on the phone in New York talking to Kalusha Bwalya in Holland. Zambia was to begin the final round of qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup qualifiers with an away match in Dakar, Senegal. Morocco was the other team in the three-nation group.
We were optimistic. Zambia, minus its European-based pros then, Kalusha, Johnson Bwalya and Charles Musonda, had crushed Mauritius 3-0 in an African Nations Cup qualifier the previous weekend. Kelvin Mutale, hardly a year in the squad but already Zambia’s most prolific scoring threat had notched all three goals. Par for the course for the young sensation. In a letter to me earlier, Kalusha had described Kelvin as the best striker he’d ever played with. Finally, Zambia had a center forward to complement its formidable defense, midfield and Kalusha’s attacking role.
The United States would host the ’94 World Cup. It seemed plain-sailing for Zambia. Kalusha said he’d be flying from Eindhoven to Dakar the following Tuesday, April 27, to join the team ahead of the qualifier that weekend. I wished him luck and told him to pass my regards to ba Alex, Wisdom and all my other friends on the team that I’d covered and traveled with when I worked for the Zambia Daily Mail. “Tell them I’ll see them here next year,” I said.
Six days later, the phone rings early in the morning at my apartment in Elmhurst, Queens. One of my brothers answers. He says it’s for me. It’s Kalusha. It’s 5:30 a.m.
He’s supposed to be in Senegal so I know it’s not good.
“Hello…” I say.
“Hi…,” Kalusha replies. “…I just got a call from FAZ in Zambia…The plane….”
He doesn’t have to say more. I’ve already processed the tragic news.
He’d returned home from a workout at PSV’s training facility and was packing his bags getting ready to head for the airport when FAZ called. Kalusha is calm. So am I. I’m a journalist and just like seven years earlier when I got a call that my mother had died in a car crash, the journalistic instincts kick in: verify the story.
There’s no Yahoo news. These are the days before the Internet. So I pull out my shortwave radio — dial permanently set to BBC. It’s soon 6 a.m. and the news comes on, as always, on the hour.
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s lead story is shocking. It confirms the horrible news….A military plane carrying the Zambia national football team has crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after take-off in Libreville, Gabon. Thirty passengers on the plane are missing. A rescue operation is underway…”
I call my old paper, The Zambia Daily Mail and speak to Goliath, a reporter on the sports desk. I start reciting the names so familiar to me…players I knew very well…players I’d traveled with…players I admired…seeking confirmation if they’d been on the ill-fated flight.
“…Efford…Eston…Wisdom…Derby”
Goliath assents after each name. The news is catastrophic.
Still, it doesn’t really sink in until hours later.
Tuesday, April 28, 1993 is World Cup qualifying day in Europe. The pick of the action is the Holland-England tie at Wembley.
I’d long been a Dutch fan. Since 1974, as a matter of fact, when decked out in that famous orange kit very similar to Zambia’s then, they’d come out of the blue, pretty much like Zambia had in Africa at that time, to shake up the football order at the World Cup in Germany.The only place to catch a foothball game in New York in 1993 was on closed circuit TV at a handful of Irish or English pubs. With a heavy heart, I venture to an English establishment in lower Manhattan. On the large screen in the packed bar the English and Dutch squads line up to observe a minute of silence for Zambia’s fallen heroes. The bar goes quiet. The sight of Frank Rijkaard, his dreadlocked head bowed in mourning, is the cue for me to let my emotions go.The tears fall.The nightmare is real. Zambia will not be coming to the World Cup finals. Efford, whose advice to a superstitious goalie [“kuiposa fye”] I famously quoted in the Daily Mail, was gone. So was Wisdom, Kalusha’s closest friend in the squad going back to October 1983 when we all traveled together to Egypt for an Olympic Games qualifier. And Derby, who could always be a found at the corner of Profund House on Cairo Road – the last place where I’d see him in January 1991. And Eston, the last of the ill-fated team that I’d see, also in 1991.The rest, as the old cliché goes, is history. A bitter one for that.
Over the years, the real story of what happened that fateful night in Libreville on the night of April 27, 1993 remains a mystery.
I contacted the Canadian company that built the Buffalo plane carrying the team with the hope of obtaining their crash report, albeit in vain. They hadn’t conducted an investigation.
It would be years later that I’d chance a summary online from the Aviation Safety Network.
This is what it said:
“The Zambian national football team had to play a World cup qualification match against the Senegal national team. In order to transport the team and officials to Dakar, a Zambian Air Force plane was prepared. The DHC-5 Buffalo, AF-319, had not been flying from December 21, 1992 to April 21, 1993 so test flights were carried out on April 22 and April 26. On April 26 both the A and B checks were carried out revealing certain defects such as carbon particles in the engine and in speed decreaser gearbox oil filters, disconnected or unbridled cables and trace of heating. The Buffalo departed Lusaka, for Dakar with planned intermediate stops at Brazzaville, Libreville and Abidjan. After refuelling at Libreville, the aircraft took-off at 22:44 hours, one hour and 45 minutes late. Shortly afterwards the left engine failed. The plane headed out over sea and lost altitude until it struck the water 500m offshore. An investigation conducted by the Gabonese Ministry of Defence suggested that the pilot shut down the remaining right-hand engine causing the plane to lose all power. The report, released in November 2003, also said that the pilot was tired, having just flown back from Mauritius the previous day.”
(Written by Jay Mwamba)
May the souls of Zambia’s departed heroes continue to rest in peace.
