Hawk incident at Swartkop
Date: 19 March 2009
By Dean Wingrin
A Hawk training aircraft performed a wheels-up landing at Swartkop this morning.
The number of Hawk aircraft, flown by 85 Combat Flying School based at AFB Makhado, have been deployed to the Swartkop airfield near Pretoria to act as interceptors for Exercise Shield 3.
Exercise Shield 3 is a joint South African Police Service (SAPS) and SA National Defence Force (SANDF) operation taking place in Gauteng and the North West Province to further prepare for June's Confederations Cup and next year's Soccer World Cup. As this exercise aims to ensure the security of the airspace, the South African Air Force, in close co-operation with the Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) is playing a pivotal role by providing authorisation for all civilian aircraft to fly in the designated restricted airspace and to intercept all unidentifed and suspicious aircraft.
This is the second reported incident involving the Hawk since they were first two aircraft were handed over in May 2006. A Vulture struck the wing of a Hawk shortly after take-off on 30 September 2005.
