More could have been saved in Bukoba crash
What you need to know:
- The nation is awaiting results of an exhaustive investigation into the crash promised by the relevant authorities.
Tanzania is still coming to terms with last Sunday’s accident involving a Precision Air plane, which crashed into Lake Victoria in Bukoba, Kagera Region, killing 19 of the 43 people on board.
According to initial reports, Flight PW494 went down in bad weather, a stone’s throw from the shore, and in the vicinity of Bukoba Airport, which would have been its final destination after the plane flew in from Dar es Salaam via Mwanza.
The nation is awaiting results of an exhaustive investigation into the crash promised by the relevant authorities.
However, it is already known that it was one of the worst aviation accidents in Tanzania’s history, and, needless to say, the crash was a big international story carried by virtually all the major international news outlets throughout Sunday and beyond.
We take this opportunity to offer our heartfelt condolences to the families of those who died in the accident, and wish the survivors a speedy recovery from the injuries and mental anguish they suffered as a result of the incident.
That said, the accident once again exposed the extent to which disaster preparedness and response are generally lacking in Tanzania.
Under the glare of the world’s media, this well documented frailty was there for all to see as if any proof were needed.
The plane did not crash in the middle of Lake Victoria – far from it.
It went down in broad daylight in shallow waters near the shore in one of Tanzania’s biggest and most vibrant municipalities, but it still took agonisingly long for the first responders from official organs to arrive at the scene.
Going through the motions
Even so, the most that a good number of “rescuers” who were finally at the scene of the crash did was go through the motions of searching for survivors.
They were, in effect, spectators who followed what was going on from the safety of dry land.
It was local fishermen, with their bare hands and old-fashioned canoes, who rescued most of the 24 people who survived the crash.
Some traders operating on the shore and members of the public also played a key role in the search and rescue operation.
They put their own lives on the line to ensure that as many survivors as possible were pulled from the stricken plane, and taken to safety. Some were so engrossed in the exercise that they themselves had to be rescued.
They were the true heroes of the rescue operation, and the nation will forever be indebted to them.
The painful reality is that the nation needlessly lost 19 souls as a result of shamelessly slow and inadequate response by the relevant organs.
We are sure many more lives could have been saved had adequate numbers of competent rescuers armed with the right equipment arrived early at the scene.
As the relevant authorities investigate the accident, a separate investigation should be carried out into the response to establish exactly where the blame should lie because the fact is that somebody was sleeping on the job.
