United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon is to urge the release of all pertinent information in a bid to establish the circumstances of the Douglas DC-6 crash which killed former UN chief Dag Hammarskjold.
His action follows recent extensive investigation by an independent panel which attempted to determine whether any specific accounts, evidence and testimony in the wake of the September 1961 crash was worth further analysis.
While the panel found that many claims over the loss of the aircraft, which came down on approach to Ndola, in modern Zambia, lacked credibility, it states that there is “moderate probative value” in particular evidence pointing to the possibility of an aerial attack on the Transair DC-6.
Newly-conducted interviews with eyewitnesses suggest they saw more than one aircraft in the air – and that the additional aircraft were jets – as Hammarskjold’s flight neared Ndola.
There is evidence, the panel found, of radio intercepts relating to a possible attack on the UN aircraft, which was transporting Hammarskjold and 15 other occupants to ceasefire talks over the breakaway state of Katanga.
The panel noted that the air capability of Katangan forces may have previously been “underestimated”, adding that such aircraft as the Fouga Magister, de Havilland Dove, and Dornier Do-27 and Do-28 could conceivably have posed an aerial threat.
Previous consideration of crew fatigue had been “insufficient by contemporary investigation standards”, the panel adds. It has assigned “moderate probative value” to a Swedish analysis that three of the four flight crew had flown up to 16.8h – almost entirely at night – in the 24h before the crash.
“However, the possible role of crew fatigue does not, in and of itself, explain the cause of the crash or the extent, if at all, to which fatigue was a contributing factor to the crash of [the DC-6] under one or more of the hypotheses of the possible causes,” it states.
Ban Ki-Moon says that, following the panel’s findings, a further inquiry “would be necessary to finally establish the facts”.
But such an investigation would benefit, he says, from specific information requested by the panel from certain UN member states.
The UN says that the secretary-general will “pursue” these pending requests and is urging all member states to “declassify or otherwise make available” any information in their possession which might relate to the circumstances of the crash and the death of Hammarskjold, the second person to hold the post of UN secretary-general.
Hammarskjold was the uncle of the late Knut Hammarskjold, who took over as director general of IATA five years after the crash.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
