SAHRA Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage
March 6:
“This day in our shipwreck and aeronautical wreck history”
1847: Isaac, this sailing sloop wrecked west of Struisbaai in the Western Cape.
1896: Volo, this Norwegian wooden sailing barque wrecked in thick fog, and due to a faulty chronometer, between the Bushman’s and Kariega River mouth at Kenton-on-Sea in the Eastern Cape.
The Volo (1896) after having run aground
The wreck often washes open, and the remains of its hull can be seen sticking out of the sand. Timber used by locals to build sheds at Bushmans River.
The Volo (1896) can often be seen sticking out of the sand after a storm or a spring low tide
1961: H C Hull, this motor-powered pilot tug was scuttled in Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape.
1962: Mount Prospect, an SAA Douglas C47B (registration no. ZS-DJC), which is a domestic passenger transport plane, crashed about 11 km North of Seymour into the Katberg Mountain area in the Eastern Cape whilst flying below a heavy cloud base. The pilot and co-pilot were killed with three of the crew and two passengers surviving. The ground engineer had to walk down the mountain to get help.
ZS-DJC "Mount Prospect" (1962) date and location unknown
1999: A passenger transport helicopter, a Bell 206B Jet Ranger III (registration no. ZS-REB), crashed in the dense forests in Knysna in the Western Cape with all three that were on board losing their lives. Search and rescue operations scoured the general south coast area for a week, but no sign of the helicopter was found. Seven years later, a forest worker, who was busy preparing trees for an event that only occurs once every ten years stumbled upon the wreckage. The cause of the accident was assumed to be flying below obscure weather conditions and colliding with the terrain accidentally.
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