Special Hearings — Helderberg Flight Special Hearing — 1998-06-02

DR KLATZOW: And he would have had access to that tape?

VERNON NADEL: I believe so, yes.

DR KLATZOW: Can you think of any reason why Mr Willemse would deny that he was there that night?

VERNON NADEL: Like I say, I called him and whether he went through to head office or not, I cannot recall, I cannot recall seeing him.

DR KLATZOW: Mr Nadel, you are under oath and I want to remind you of your reply to my previous question.  I put to you that on a previous occasion you had stated to a man that you remembered Van Der Veer, Mitchell, Deal and Willemse being present at ZUR.  And when I put that to you stated, under oath that you remembered that they were there.

VERNON NADEL: I remembered making the statement to the person that spoke to me.  I didn't say that they were definitely there.  I remember speaking to

DR KLATZOW: You confirmed it in the previous question I put to you that they were there.

VERNON NADEL: I cannot recall.

DR KLATZOW: Now, and it is likely that they would have been there?

VERNON NADEL: As I say, not necessarily, some could have gone to engineering, some could have gone to the head office which is in Johannesburg, some could have come to flight operations.

DR KLATZOW: Right.  Now, when was the, when, do you remember when DCA came looking for that tape?

VERNON NADEL: No.

DR KLATZOW: Do you know who gave them a tape?

VERNON NADEL: No.

DR KLATZOW: Do you not know how the tape was taken out of ZUR that night?

VERNON NADEL: No.

DR KLATZOW: Getting back to Mr Willemse.  You remember quite well being questioned by Nils?

VERNON NADEL: Well he came to speak to me and it was an open discussion over a cup of coffee.

DR KLATZOW: And he made a contemporaneous note of that because you asked him not to use a tape recorder or bring a note pad?

VERNON NADEL: I said to him because this is not an official issue, I've had a lot of people speculating and I didn't want to be quoted out of context.

DR KLATZOW: But surely the best way to be not quoted out of context is to either allow him to tape record it or to allow him to make a note?

VERNON NADEL: He wasn't from an official board of enquiry.

DR KLATZOW: But then why speak to him at all?

VERNON NADEL: Well I spoke to him as a, he'd flown down from Orlando I believe, I'm not too sure.

DR KLATZOW: But let's look at your reason ostensibly.  The reason that you didn't want him to make a note is that you didn't want to be quoted out of context?

VERNON NADEL: Correct.

DR KLATZOW: So you forced him to use his memory in order to quote you?  A better way of being misquoted, I can't think of.

VERNON NADEL: Correct.

DR KLATZOW: Why didn't you allow him to make a note?

VERNON NADEL: As I say, I had been spoken to by many people.  There was a lot of speculation, the newspapers were full of it and to tell you the truth, I was getting a little sick and tired of the reporters.

DR KLATZOW: Yes, but your actions in fact went further towards promoting the rumour than to have been open and said, tape record me, I have nothing to hide.  Here it is.  And yet you refused to allow him to do that.

VERNON NADEL: I made that statement to some other investigative reporters saying that I am quite happy to appear in front of any board or enquiry to get this whole thing over and past.

DR KLATZOW: But you see it's inexplicable Mr Nadel, I want to put it to you that if you didn't want to be misquoted, the right way would have been to allow him to make a note.  As it is he did make a note.  He went straight to his car and made a note.  And the note that he made was as follows.  And I'm going to read it to you.
"Mr Nadel said that in addition to Van Der Veer, Mickey Mitchell was also present as was Jimmy Deal and Tienie Willemse.  Nadel could not elaborate as to why these persons were there, he later asked me not to mention the fact that Willemse was present at the facility."
Why did you do that?

VERNON NADEL: That is not true.

DR KLATZOW: So is Mr Van Wyk lying?

VERNON NADEL: Absolutely.

DR KLATZOW: You never said that?

VERNON NADEL: I don't say I never said, I never said to him that I don't know why Mr Willemse was there.

CHAIRPERSON: No but the question is, did you ever say to him that he should not mention that Willemse was there?

VERNON NADEL: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Is it a coincidence that Willemse also said to us here that he was not there?

VERNON NADEL: No.  I don't think it's a coincidence.  As I said earlier on, I called the people and this is eleven years ago, I cannot recall who was actually there and who wasn't there.  I called the people out and they either gone to the head office building or to engineering or to flight operations.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Klatzow.

DR KLATZOW: You were at the Margo enquiry?

VERNON NADEL: Correct.

DR KLATZOW: Who sat next to you?

VERNON NADEL: I cannot recall that.

DR KLATZOW: Do you remember Jimmy Mitton sitting close by you?

VERNON NADEL: He may well have been because there was a lot of airline personnel sitting around that area.

DR KLATZOW: Jimmy Mitton's evidence will be that he sat very close to you.

VERNON NADEL: It's possible.

DR KLATZOW: And if he says that you would not deny it?

VERNON NADEL: No, I wouldn't deny it.  I can't recall.

DR KLATZOW: He has a very clear memory of that.

VERNON NADEL: I don't deny that.

DR KLATZOW: When Mr Dick failed to raise the Helderberg on his shift, did he come and see you?

VERNON NADEL: Yes.

DR KLATZOW: What did he say to you?

VERNON NADEL: He said to me, there's problems with communication on the evening and he hasn't spoken to, not only that aircraft I believe there could well have been other aircraft that he hadn't spoken to either and I said to him it's not a problem.

DR KLATZOW: Despite the fact there were standing orders?

VERNON NADEL: There's no standing orders.

DR KLATZOW: Did you try to place, to put into place any of the procedures to try and raise the aircraft?

VERNON NADEL: The procedures were to cell call aircraft or to call them blindly on HF on the frequencies that they should be on and we tried that.

DR KLATZOW: Did you do that?

VERNON NADEL: Yes.

DR KLATZOW: How often did you try and do that?

VERNON NADEL: I'm not aware, Gavin Dick was the radio operator of the evening.  Possibly every two hours, I'm not too sure.

DR KLATZOW: Did he ever come back to you and say I still can't get them?

VERNON NADEL: He came back to me I would believe.  I cannot recall.  But he possibly did come back and said he's having problems with communications and I probably said to him, given the fact that the communications were bad, it's not a problem.  It happened on many many occasions before.

DR KLATZOW: And yet other evidence which has been led before various people and commissions and enquiries into this have led us to believe that the communications on that particular route were good most of the time, 85% plus at the time?

VERNON NADEL: I wouldn't want to speculate on that.

DR KLATZOW: Now, Mr Dick came to you and he said, I can't raise them and you said that's fine.  What would have been the position if the aircraft had experienced some kind of dire trouble and had to ditch at sea?

VERNON NADEL: Well if the aircraft cannot call you it would be virtually impossible for us to have known that.

DR KLATZOW: Would it not be important for you to know that there was major trouble aboard the aircraft so that you could initiate some kind of assistance?

VERNON NADEL: I would believe at the time, if an aircraft has a problem he wouldn't be calling us, he would be calling the air traffic control centre that he is in contact with at the time.

DR KLATZOW: What happens if it is a peculiarly sensitive issue that needed to be discussed?

VERNON NADEL: I don't know.

DR KLATZOW: Would he not have called you?

VERNON NADEL: I don't know.