The two South African pilots who were, basically, the minds behind the homemade plane flown by teenage pilots from Cape Town to Cairo perished yesterday after the support plane which they were flying accompanying the teenage pilots came down in Tabora region, western Tanzania.
Reports indicate that Des Werner and Werner Forenman, in the company of the teenage pilots flying the four-seater Sling plane, were expected to touch down in Cape Town, back from Cairo on Monday.
According to the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority, the pilots sent a distress call about engine failure after taking off from the Tabora airport before the plane disappearing from radar. Local authorities’ reports indicate that the plane was completely destroyed with just a few parts being recovered.
The plane which went down was owned by the U Dream Global, an organizations which was founded by the 17-year-old Werner, daughter to Des Werner and one among the teenage pilots.
In a statement, the U Dream Global said: “Cape to Cairo Challenge is devastated to report that there has been an accident of the flight support aircraft and that the Project Directors, Des Werner and Werner Froneman, have lost their lives. No-one else was involved in the accident.”
The homemade plane being flown by the teenage pilots was assembled by a team of twenty students drawn from various backgrounds in South Africa.
The six teenage pilots who shared flying duties of the four-seater plane from Cape Town to Cairo managed to obtain pilot’s licenses. They covered 12,000km (7,400 miles) from South Africa to Egypt’s capital, Cairo.
The main aim of the teenage pilots was to motivate young people across the continent that they can achieve anything that they set their eyes on as long as they remain committed to it.
The homemade plane plus the accompanying one, which crashed yesterday, made stops in Malawi, Namibia, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Uganda during their three weeks long journey.
