The SAAF Forum

Can anyone tell me what happened to the last rmaining "Mercurious" SAAF VIP transport jet from the 70's? There were 4 and three crashed into Devils Peak in Cape Town in 1971. What happened to the last one? Did it continue to serve for awhile and where is it now?

The three that crashed were replaced and a fifth was bought in 1983. They served until around 2000, can't recall the exact date. They have all been sold.

Many thanks for that.
I have been waiting three decades to find out about the Mercurius. I was in Cape Town at the time and heard the explosions. The weekend after the crash friends and i went up to the site which was of course cleared but was still a scene of devastation. For many years I could see two of the earth scars on the mountain slope from my flat in Rondebosch. When I last looked in 2004 during a visit I could no longer see them. The interesting thing was that in all my years in Cape Town from the 1950's until the 80's and seeing all kinds of SAAF aircraft in flight from the DC-3 and DC-6 to Vampires, Harvards, Sabres, Mirage, Shackletons and Canberras I never once saw a Mercurius either in flight or even on the ground. I don't even recall seeing one at Ysterplaat AFB when I went to the first Airshow there in the early '80's. i find that curious. Surely at least one would have been in Cape Town on call for someone to use? I wonder if there is a history of the aircraft to read

http://newsite.ipmssa.za.org/content/view/122/28/

http://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforc ... -mercurius

Interesting read, did you take any photographs at the time?

<<Interesting read, did you take any photographs at the time?>>

You mean of the Crash Site? No but I know some of the girls with us did. I might ask around and see if any of them might have some. You can be sure though that the photos were probably not taken of the crash site but rather of people. We were about 20 strong boys and girls and it was quite an occassion. We were all very young and in our teens. It was the 70's What can I say. I don't think the girls wanted to go up there but the guys did so the girls came with us

Something I don't talk about much and haven't for many years was that one of the girls with us-a lovely English immigrant girl by the name of Patty Freestone (amazing the memory)- found a human organ hung up in a 'silver' tree on the site. I remember this as if it was yesterday and I remember seeing it close-up. I knew what it was. We left it there and did nothing about it. To do that would have meant a whole host of questioning bureaucracy, etc. So we just walked away. Our justification was that it wasn't for us to do anything about that and in any case nature would clear it away soon enough. There were doubtless other remains still around. I think that was clear to us. They used parties of national serviceman to clean up after the larger parts of the planes that remained were taken away.

It really was a mess as you can imagine. The first two planes impacted within 20 metres of one another and that was clear by the gouges in the earth-seen even from kms away. So the 'blast factor' must have been considerable. The ground and surrounding surviving trees and bushes reeked of fuel and it was all burned down to nothing over a wide radius. There was still metal sharding everywhere and probably still is today. Well it was bad over 2 areas actually. Not so much at the third impact site. It seemed that the pilot of the last plane must have seen the explosions of the first two in front of him and tried to pull up. He almost made it but crashed in about 200 metres further along. I would guess (and I am going my memory now) that another 20-50 ft and we would have been clear. I remember speculation about that at the time as a Mountain Ranger had seen the explosions from the Rhodes memorial site and what he reported was borne out by what I saw.

In any even I have no photos available but I do have some scanned cuttings from the newspaper of the time. If I knew how to insert them into the body of this post I would do it but it seems thats not possible to do. If anyone wants to see the cuttings I will send them to their email addresses. Email me at swanson@storm.ca

One of the 11 SAAF personnel on board who was killed was a Provincial and Springbok Rugby player-a Right Wing (from the TVL maybe) if I recall. The name escapes me. I wish I could insert it but... Sigh what memories.. A sad time.

I received the following scan from Swannie52:

Hi Swannie,

I have read...and re-read...and re-read a book by James Byrom, "Fields of Air:, which includes a very detailed report on the Mercurius crash. The rugby player to whom you refer was Renier Grobler, who played wing for Northern Transvaal. He accompanied the Sprinboks on the 1969-1970 tour of Britain, but was apparently not selected for any of the tests.

Get the book if you can...it starts from the very first aircraft ever flown over South African territory, right up to very recent history, including triumphs, tragedies and mysteries of civil aviation in South Africa.

Regards



SHAUN J RUTH

Oh I'd love to get it but I don't think that will be possible here in Canada. However now if someone were to send me one... ? (Hint Hint...)

Interesting that Renier Grobler was on the tour to the UK in 69-70 because he would have been in the tour squad with my cousin Peter Swanson (Centre for Transvaal) who was also a Springbok on that tour and who did play in the tests. They would have known one another well for sure. I believe they called that tour the protest tour. I can still remember seing a photo of Peter and his buddies standing on the field at Twickenham while protestors threw flour bombs on the pitch. Peter died far too early in late 2002 in England.

I suppose it depends where in Cape Town you lived. I was fortunate to have grown up in the suburb of Milnerton, which is just down wind of the prevailing South Easter wind from Ysterplaat. I also attended Holy Cross Primary School in Brooklyn, which is just over the fence from Ysterplaat! My childhood days were filled with Wasps, Allouettes, Pumas, Super Frelons, Dakota's and the like from the Airforcebase. we were also on the flightpath of the daily Transall, Dakota and C-130 shuttles up north. We also frequently saw Impala's and Harvards from Langebaan, as well as the ocasional Mirage and later Cheetah whenever they were at Langebaan. Occasional sightings were made of the DC-4, and I once saw a Vampire as well!

Many a languid summer weekend was spent on my parents garage roof with binoculars..... and when an airshow was in the offing, such as the big ones in 1980 and 1982, we basically spent the entire week up there watching the rehearsals!

I saw the Mercurious many times, as well as the Viscount occasionally. The Mercurious were particularly noisy aircraft. It is why i have loved aircraft from an early age.

We were luckier than you Southern Suburb types.

EDIT: The most common plane in the sky was definitely the Albatros. Evelyn the Spitfire made an appearance every now and then. Most magnificent was watching the Shackletons taxy along the fence at Ysterplaat by Holy Cross during break times. They were almost within arms reach!! I later heard they were based at DF Malan due to the runway length ...... yet these were operational Shacks with flightcrew dressed in their flight gear. They would often take off from Ysterplaat. This happened quite regularly. Does anyone know why they came to Ysterplaat?

That's right, rub it in!



At that time, 35 Sqn was based at Ysterplaat. As you stated, the Ysterplaat runway was too short for the Shackletons to take-off with a full fuel load, so they would take-off from Ysters with a light load and land at DF Malan. They would then upload more fuel and take-off for the patrol.

Later, the hangers at AFB YPLT Det were build on the other side of the airport runway and 35 Sqd moved there.

Thanks for the info Dean. Surely that must have eaten up a lot of the airframe fatigue life .... basically performing 2 landings and 2 take-offs per mission?

Believe it or not I was once offered a trip on a patrol in a Shackleton with some friends from Pinelends. I turned it down. I don't know why now but I regretted it. My buddies had a great time

One day on the N2 on my return from work in Kuils River I saw a Canberra in Rhodesian Air Force markings take off at DF Malan-right in front of my car. It seemed huge to me. It was barely off the ground when it banked left immediately after take off. Framed by Table Mountain it was un unforgettable sight. It was on one Summer evening in 1978 when this happened. All I can think as to why it was there was it was on some kind of co-operative scheme for maintainence with the SAAF down at the 35 Squadron workshops/hangers. It was the only time I ever saw a Canberra and it was beautiful sight.

My Dad told me that in the mid 50's when I was very little my Mother and I were in the stroller through Pinelends one day when a Ventura (or was it a Harvard?) due to land at Wingfield (which apparently was still operating then) developed some kind of trouble and crashed. I seem to have a vague memory of this moment in time but nothing clear. I have found nothing on it but do not doubt ut happened.

I also remember seeing SAAF Sabre jets (Canadair?) doing "sky writing" over Cape Town in the mid-60's while on lunch break at school. How do I know they were Sabres? Well i could see them clearly (3 of them) for a start and secindly there was a report in the Cape Times the next day with a photo of a huge 'heart' in the sky.

The Rhodesian Canberra aircraft would regularly visit Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town while conducting long-range navigational exercises.

The fact that SA also operated Canberras and it was great to go for a flip to the coast also helped.

<<The Rhodesian Canberra aircraft would regularly visit Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town while conducting long-range navigational exercises.The fact that SA also operated Canberras and it was great to go for a flip to the coast also helped. >>

I expect it would have been shortly after this event that that the same along with otherss would have been involved in the Green Leader-Golf Bomb raid on Westlands Farm outside Lusaka in Zambia

I've created a seperate thread for discussion on Green Leader:
www.saairforce.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1257