Missing police helicopter BPS02: Police still clueless

Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday April 23, 2014 12:30

“Let us all pray that we find them safe and then we can ask questions about what happened later,” police commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe said in a tense media briefing yesterday. “The only evidence we have is that the helicopter took off but we don’t know what happened after that. Our search is focused on the Okavango Delta.”

Makgophe and his lieutenants at the briefing were unable to shed light on whether the helicopter had any tracking device on board, what communication if any had been received from the pilots, possible locations and reasons behind the disappearance. “Some of the information is technical and it is still too early for us to comment on,” he said.

“We had a choice of delaying this press conference to get more facts, but we felt that would lead to speculation.” What is known is that an AS350 B3 helicopter carrying two police pilots and an airborne law enforcement officer, took off from Gumare on the outskirts of the Delta at 1910 hours on a routine surveillance flight, on Sunday evening. While the helicopter is not known to have followed a specific route, it is believed to have gone missing between Gumare and Maun. Although police are not discounting the possibility that it could have flown over the border, their efforts are presently focussed on the Delta.

Search parties from both the private sector and disciplined forces are on the ground on foot and in vehicles, in the air as well as on the water, being coordinated by a rescue coordination centre in Gaborone and a joint operations centre in Maun.

“We have thus far not picked up any signal from anything, otherwise we would have shared that with the public,” Makgophe said.

“As far as we are concerned, the aircraft was in good condition and it was serviceable. The crewmembers have been flying for a number of years and their condition in terms of fitness is also good. The weather was said to have been fine as well. However, in all these, we do not have the investigation report. Once it has been done, we will be able to say with certainty what happened. Anything else is speculation,” said the police commissioner. Makgophe said relatives of the missing crewmembers had requested that the police preserve their privacy and withhold the identity of the officers in the helicopter.

“We are hoping that we will find them; the aircraft and the personnel. That’s our focus and our priority,” he said. The missing helicopter is believed to be part of a fleet purchased by police in 2009 to establish the Air Support Branch. In that year, the BPS purchased three AS350 B3s which then supplier, Eurocopter, lauded as having “a proven track record in police missions - especially in hot and high conditions. Around the world, including Southern Africa, Eurocopter’s AS350 B3 remains a top-performing single-engined light helicopter and a firm favourite with police forces,” the French firm’s officials said at the time.