Special Hearings — Helderberg Flight Special Hearing — 1998-06-01

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Did anybody ever tell you at the time that the tape had been overtaped?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Who told you that?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Probably Captain Mitchell or Mr Viv Lewis.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: And did you admonish anybody for this?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Did you ask to see the overtaped tape?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: You know, of course, that the tapes have a record system of a yellow card which is filled in as each is completed?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I don't know the detailed record system, but I do know there is a record system.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: There is a record system.   And it would not have escaped you that, had that been the version, that Mitchell or Lewis would have come to you and said, "We've blued, this is serious, we've overtaped that tape".   Did they do that?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Did they show you the tape?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: So you accepted that the tape had simply been overtaped?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Without any further investigation?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Because it was out of my hands at that point in time.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.   You know, I just want to say you should accept that you are not on trial.   I'm not saying that you have done anything to indicate that you consider yourself to be on trial, but we will ask some of the questions in a very broken and a penetrative way, and I think one of my questions which you have endeavoured to counter already is, was going to be whether you did not consider that it was a matter for which, as chief executive officer, you should have demanded more proof of it having happened, but then you had begun to say it was out of your hands.   Maybe let me allow the questioning to flow.   Mr... (intervention).

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Well I don't mean for one moment to suggest that you're on trial, Mr Van der Veer.   What I'm trying to do is to get to the base of the problem.    Having been aware that the tape was important, having been aware that it was taped over, are you aware that Jimmy Deale signed the tape out that night?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: That his signature is somewhere in the records and that he has told me in a tape recorded telephone conver-sation, albeit inadvertently, that he signed the tape out that night.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I'm not aware that Jimmy Deale signed it.  Let me explain the situation on that Saturday morning, not that night, okay?    It's five o'clock in the morning, we have an aircraft missing, we're not sure what happened, okay?   When Mr Lewis phoned me the first time, he said to me, "It's got fuel for another hour, hour and a half".   So we did not necessarily assume that it had gone down at that point, okay?   Just about five o'clock, or just after five o'clock, we then realised, if it hadn't landed at Mauritius and it hadn't landed anywhere else, it would be out of fuel, full stop.   We would then have to assume at that point in time the aircraft is lost.   Now the priorities on the mind of a chief executive at that time of the morning with an incident like that are yes, to secure records, obviously, but there's no way that the CEO can do that on his own, right?    So it was reported to me, and if I'm correct, it was Captain Mickey Mitchell and Lewis which said, "We have taken the tapes and we've sealed them", that's it, nothing more.   My attention at that point in time was far away from trying to look at detailed records, because, and let me explain this, please, Mr Chairman, the first point is, if the aircraft is in the sea, there could be survivors, what are we going to do?    That's our first priority.    The second priority is, we have 159 people on board.   The aircraft would land very early that Saturday morning in South Africa, the people are basically on their way to the airport to meet their relatives.   How do we handle them?  The third thing on my mind, which you may or may not be aware, but that same evening we had an engine failure on a 747 on (Indistinct) Island, on the other side, the London route, and the aircraft, we could get no relief aircraft to remove 300 passengers.   The other one is to send the rescue team to Mauritius.   So when a man reports to me, whom I've got the greatest confidence in, that it's been done, I accept, I don't need to check up.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: I want to stop you there, because we've got limited time... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Thank you.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...and much information to gather and I accept immediately your assurances that there was pandemonium, in a controlled way, that night.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: There was no pandemonium.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: There was frenetic activity... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Okay, yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...would that be more acceptable?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Right.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: And high stress... (intervention).

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Correct.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: ...and everything else.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Now, your evidence to this commission is that Mickey Mitchell told you that he'd sealed all the tapes, including the ZUR tapes, and they were ready for collection by the DCA?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Not all the tapes, the ZUR tapes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Correct, the important ones, the ZUR tapes.   Could you explain to the commission how it was that when Mr Roy Downes from DCA came to the airport to collect those tapes, they were missing?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Number one, I don't know when he came to collect that... (intervention).

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Three weeks later.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Okay.   Let me explain to you that in those three weeks I had not been once in my own office, okay?   I only got back 21 days after the accident for the first time in my own office.    My office is in town, sir, it's not at the airport.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: But I think the answer to my question is, you have no explanation as to how, once Mickey Mitchell had... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...sealed the tape... (intervention).

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: ...it could go missing?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: No.   It could have gone missing in umpteen ways.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Correct.   But Mickey Mitchell had told you he sealed the tape?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: That morning.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Did you ever approach him and upbraid him for the missing tape?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: What did you say to him?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: What did I say to him?

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Yes.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: That was much later than just the three weeks, to the best of my recollection, remember this was 12 years or something ago, 11 years, and they told me that somehow the tape had got back into the circulation, okay?

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Did you question them how that somehow was?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Yes I did.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: What did they say?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: What can you say, if that's the situation, okay, it happened.

DAVID JOSEPH KLATZOW: Well... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: I think the question is, what did he say, if you can still remember?

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: I cannot remember.

CHAIRPERSON: This is a tape that contained vital infor-mation relevant to over 100 people who had died in very tragic circumstances.

GERRIT DIRK VAN DER VEER: Mr Chairman... (intervention).