Investigation Into Plane Crash That Killed Macedonian President Finds All Victims Died Instantly

AP ^ | Feb. 28, 2004

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Investigation Into Plane Crash That Killed Macedonian President Finds All Victims Died Instantly

Feb 28, 2004

By Misha Savic / Associated Press Writer

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Macedonia's president and eight others were killed instantly when their plane crashed in southern Bosnia, investigators said Saturday, as forensic experts carried out DNA analysis to identify the bodies. In the Macedonian capital, officials said they would wait for investigators to finish their work before setting a date for elections to choose a successor to President Boris Trajkovski, the political moderate who was credited with helping defuse an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001.

Macedonia's government set up a panel of legal experts to work on meeting a constitutional requirement that the vote be held in 40 days, government spokesman Saso Colakovski said. The speaker of Macedonia's parliament, Ljupco Jordanovski, has been named interim acting president.

Thursday's crash in the Bosnian mountains burned six of the bodies beyond recognition. Colakovski said the process of identifying Trajkovski and the other eight victims would likely take several days.

Trajkovski, 47, was en route to an international investment conference in Bosnia when the twin-engine turboprop plane crashed in heavy fog about 50 miles south of Sarajevo.

The wreckage was transported to the nearby Mostar airport, where Trajkovski and his entourage had been scheduled to land.

Bosnian authorities, who are investigating the crash with their Macedonian counterparts, said initial findings showed everyone on board died instantly when the plane crashed.

Media in Bosnia and Macedonia have voiced concerns that French air traffic controllers working at the time of the crash might have made an error that sent Trajkovski's aircraft off course and caused the crash.

Officials of NATO-led troops in Bosnia known as SFOR have not responded to the media reports.

Dzelal Hasecic, director of the Bosnian civil aviation authority, said before the crash, the plane was "on a much lower altitude then it was supposed to be."

Bosnian police also recovered devices containing flight data and cockpit recordings of conversations between the pilots and flight control.

In Skopje, the opposition party VMRO implied the crash may not have been an accident. A statement from the party demanded an "urgent formation of a special committee comprising representatives of opposition parties" who would look into the "unclear circumstances of President Trajkovski's death." It did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, Macedonians continued their third day of mourning for Trajkovski, lighting candles and laying flowers in front of his office.

Elected in 1999, Trajkovski was Macedonia's second head of state since the former Yugoslav republic gained independence in 1991.

When fighting erupted in 2001 between ethnic Albanian insurgents and government troops, Trajkovski helped steer the nation toward a peace deal that met the rebels' demands in exchange for an end to hostilities. He earned respect on both sides of the ethnic divide despite occasional flare-ups in the country's northwest, a stronghold of the mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians.

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I don't know anything about the flight plan of this flight.

But...

I gonna guess that this Beechcraft King Air was flying a non-precision approach into some god-forsaken hell hole.

[billorites]

The President of the United States doesn't fly non-precision approaches into anywhere. Ever.

Don't take my word for it, ask Ron Brown.

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Unfortunately, for Mr. Trajkovski, being the President of Macedonia doesn't have the clout of being the President of the U.S.. You don't get an Air Force One.

Time to re-locate the airport.

[Rudder]

"...before the crash, the plane was "on a much lower altitude then it was supposed to be."

Doesn't that always happen before smacking into the dirt?

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That low altitude stuff is a big problem in mountainous areas.
Makes people crash into mts alot.

On a more serious note....it kind of sounds like the French air traffic controller person had the pilot at the wrong altitude. Weather was bad, foggy, poor visiblity. And this sounds like a real tough airport in which to land.