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

MS TERREBLANCHE: No.  Not at all.  Thank you.

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: The question is that I should briefly explain what my career was with SAA.  I was asked to transfer to SAA during 1979.  At that stage I was a member of the legal advisors team and was known then as the South African Railways and Harbours and I fulfilled a very specific role there.  I had to appear on behalf of the old Railways and Harbours before the National Transport Commission to look after the so-called competition between road and rail.
 The reason why I asked to transfer to the airlines was because there was a commission of enquiry appointed at that time under the chairmanship of Justice Margo which had to look at the whole issue of a new airline policy for South Africa and the then deputy asked me to transfer to the airlines so that I could become a member of the Margo Commission itself, to advise them on the new aviation policy for South Africa.  
 What was at stake was mainly the open skies policy which had taken hold in America at that stage and I followed it and some particulars and I attended some of the hearings in Washington at that stage to find out what the impact of the so-called open skies policy would be in South Africa.  That was chiefly my role.  To advise the South African Airways and to help with the activities of the Margo Commission which extended over a couple of years and that was very briefly the reason for my transfer to the South African Airways.  It was a very specific instruction which I had.

MS TERREBLANCHE: At the time of the Helderberg disaster, could you please explain what your position was at SAA?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: After the Margo Commission had been completed I acquired other responsibilities and I then moved in to the commercial side of the airlines and away from the pure legal side of matters.  We used different titles initially.  My title was trade director.
 There were two of us and then we subdivided it into the director of marketing and director of planning.  Subsequently we changed it to chief director international.  At that stage I was mainly responsible for the international or the commercial side of international services of SAA.  There was no clear dividing line between domestic activities and the international activities because we were in the process of developing those as two separate products and we said that the internal scenario was aimed at a very specific public market and internationally speaking the target market was very different and I was chiefly engaged in the development of the root structure of the international section of South African Airlines.

MS TERREBLANCHE: Did that include passengers as well as cargo?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: Yes.  It was the total enterprise.  But I must tell you that in the 1980's there was very little emphasis on cargo in the sense that we didn't have a specific cargo section and the reason for that was as a result of all the detours that we had to use due to sanctions existing at the time and we had very little cargo capacity which we could utilise on our planes.
 South African Airways at that stage was mainly a passenger enterprise.  So the emphasis was on the development of routes for passenger purposes and where cargo could be added that was regarded as a bonus.  From South Africa there was very little cargo but it was mainly perishables which depended very much on the season and the main route was towards Europe.

MS TERREBLANCHE: You're talking about sanctions now, were you aware of the fact that SAA sometimes carried cargo intended to evade sanctions or circumvent sanctions?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No.  The cargo which we carried was any commercial cargo which we could obtain in the market at competitive prices to bring it in, well in both directions.  In other words, in to South Africa and from South Africa.  The sanctions to which I am referring is this, the fact that SAA could not fly along the normal commercial routes which our competitors used.
 You will remember that since 1963, that was before my time, we could not use the shortest routes across Africa.  So all our routes to Europe were via the West Coast of Africa or the stop at Sol Island.  At some point most of our flights stopped.

MS TERREBLANCHE: Yes, now we understand that, I just want to make sure about this question, were you ever aware of the fact that cargo was carried or placed on SAA flights which were actually not destined for South Africa or which South Africa could actually not export due to sanctions?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No I was not aware of anything like that.

MS TERREBLANCHE: I think that Dr Klatzow wants to ask you a couple of questions.

DR KLATZOW: Thank you Mr Willemse.  Do you have any objection if I ask my questions in English?  And if you have any difficulty, you may just ask me.  Mr Willemse, your duty with SAA was a legal advisory and a general commercial advisory capacity, was that not correct?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: Initially a legal advisor in the sense only when I acted in the role of representing SAA at the Margo Commission of Enquiry into civil aviation.

DR KLATZOW: Correct, but at the time of the Helderberg.  In 1988, your function was to oversee the commercial aspects of the international trade that SAA was doing?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: That's correct.

DR KLATZOW: And as such you would have been intimately involved with the accident and the following investigations and the matters that transpired as a result of the accident?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No, I was not intimately involved.  Let me explain it to you.  I was not at all involved in the investigation into the Helderberg disaster.  It was an aspect which was dealt with purely on the technical side at the airport.  The only role which I fulfilled during and after the accident was that I and my team of marketing and sales people, I'm talking about passenger sales, passenger marketing, we set up an office at Johannesburg, at the head office and our sole function was to transmit information to the families and friends of the passengers who had died in the disaster.
 That was our main purpose.  To actually effect contact with the next of kin.  To keep them informed regarding the progress and I'm specifically referring to the first couple of days after the accident took place, to contact as many of these as possible because we had the passenger lists and the arrangement which we made was that we sent our sales people to the next of kin as far as we could trace them in South Africa to have contact with them on behalf of SAA, to tell them what the position was and also to convey our condolences and to find out whether there was anything that we could assist them with at that stage.
 What we also did was that we attended as many of the memorial services as we could as a sign of our condolences.

DR KLATZOW: Yes, but the night of the accident were you at Jan Smuts Airport?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No.  At no stage was I personally at Jan Smuts Airport during or after the accident.

DR KLATZOW: You were never in the operational room?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No.

DR KLATZOW: Along with Mickey Mitchell and others?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: No.  As I said, I set up an office in headquarters or I had an office in headquarters in Johannesburg and that is where I did my work from.

DR KLATZOW: Did you ever know a man, Tinus Jacobs who was working for SAA?

MARTINUS GERHARDUS WILLEMSE: Tinus Jacobs was at some point and I think especially during the Helderberg disaster, he was our manager in Taiwan.

DR KLATZOW: That's quite correct.  Can you inform us about Tinus Jacobs' career after the Helderberg disaster?