Posted on 03/02/2004 9:25:13 PM PST by Destro
Are French air traffic controllers responsible for Macedonian president's death?
Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 @ 4:34 AM CSTAre French air traffic controllers responsible for Macedonian president's death? The enquiry has started on the crash that killed president Boris Trajkovski last Thursday, and the role of NATO after the crash in Bosnia.
Boris Trajkovski was flying to an international conference in Mostar (Bosnie-Herzegovina) when he crashed, in the fog, at 80 km South of Sarajevo. The president was killed, together with six aides and the two pilots of the aircraft.
French soldiers of SFOR, the NATO Stabilisation Force in Bosnia, made a first search for the aircraft and the bodies, without success. They prevented local police to participe in the rescue efforts. Macedonian authorities got angry and spread the word that the French have a responsability in the accident, and particularly the French SFOR air traffic controllers in charge of Mostar airport.
Eventually, the plane and its black boxes were retrieved by local police. "We want a thorough enwuiry and the truth", said Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski, after ameetin,g with the SFOR authorities. He blamed the "bad coordination between Bosnian authorities and SFOR on the day of the accident".
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_id=5223
Macedonia asks to quiz French military air controllers over Trajkovski crash
SKOPJE, March 1 (AFP) - Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski on Monday sought NATO's full cooperation with the investigation into a plane crash which killed president Boris Trajkovski over Bosnia last week.
In a letter to the NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Crvenkovski said French soldiers serving with NATO had the last contact with Trajovski's plane and could shed light on the accident that killed nine people on Thursday.
"The Republic of Macedonia is not ready to leave unexplained the circumstances in which its president tragically disappeared," he wrote.
He said investigations into the cause would look at the role of the Bosnian authorities as well as the NATO troops manning the air traffic control tower at Mostar airport.
The King Air 200 plane was in contact with French troops at Mostar airport when it disappeared from radar screens and crashed on a foggy hillside just 12 kilometres (eight miles) away.
Crvenkovski said he expected NATO to hand over "all information relevant to the accident".
Commenting earlier on media reports that the French controllers had been flown home, Crvenkovski said: "I don't know whether they are out of Bosnia or not but wherever they are they cannot avoid being investigated."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.