SARAJEVO, March 1 (Hina) - The plane carrying Macedonia's President and another eight people, that crashed into a hill in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina, was flying too low when it hit the hill. This is the only reliable information on
the circumstances of last Thursday's tragedy which claimed the lives of all nine people aboard the plane which was carrying a Macedonian delegation to Mostar for an international conference.
SARAJEVO, March 1 (Hina) - The plane carrying Macedonia's President and
another eight people, that crashed into a hill in southern
Bosnia-Herzegovina, was flying too low when it hit the hill. This is
the only reliable information on the circumstances of last Thursday's
tragedy which claimed the lives of all nine people aboard the plane
which was carrying a Macedonian delegation to Mostar for an
international conference.#L#
Local media in Bosnia on Monday quoted a statement of the Macedonian
government as saying that SFOR (international peace keepers in Bosnia)
admitted to Premier Branko Crvenkovski, who visited the plane crash
site over the weekend, that there were some mistakes in the
communication with the public immediately after the tragedy on
Thursday morning. A spokesman for the NATO-led Stabilisation Force
(SFOR), Dave Sullivan, resolutely refuted the media speculation.
The chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Council of Ministers, Adnan
Terzic, announced that he would insist on talks with the SFOR chief
commander, General Virgil Packett, to explain possible
misunderstanding.
The administration of the Bosnia's civil aviation stated on Sunday
that there was no room for speculation on or prejudging of the causes
of the plane accident particularly in the segment pertaining to the
role of SFOR flight controllers.
The Sarajevo-based Oslobodjenje daily said that after one of the 'two
black boxes' was examined, it was established that the crew of the
plane had been warned by a flight controller that they had been flying
too low.
You are flying too low. You must start flying upward, a flight
controller told the crew, and the captain answered "All right".
This was, according to the daily, the last conversation between the
plane and the flight tower. The connections were cut off after that.
According to available information, at the time of the last
conversation, the aircraft was at the altitude of 600 metres, twice
lower than the minimum altitude for the flight.
The other circumstances of the tragedy will be known with the
publication of the outcome of the ongoing investigation and analyses
of the flight recorders.
(Hina) ms