Those of you who follow us on Twitter will have been aware this morning of an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report coming from Lusaka, Zambia of a crash landing of a DC 9 (and in some cases, a DC 10 was even reported) with 93 people aboard at Lusaka International. It was even tweeted that "some 20 people had been rescued". |
| The original AFP tweet (retweeted) |
Later on in the morning, a Swedish journalist, Per Nyberg, tweeted that Lusaka ATC had confirmed that the entire incident had simply been a simulation and that no aircraft had crashed and no one had been injured. The AFP subsequently tweeted a correction to the original article, though some news agencies are still with the story. (Of interest is Iran's PressTV, who ironically, try to point out Africa's shortcomings on the air safety front).
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| Per Nyberg's tweet clearing up the confusion. |
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| The AFP's subsequent retraction |
No prior warning was given by Zambia's Department of Civil Aviation even after a similar incident in 2009 caused pandemonium and chaos in the streets of Lusaka.
Southern Africa is no stranger to poorly conceived crash rehearsals and drills, the most serious of which was an incident in Zimbabwe in 2010 in which a 767 was said to have crashed at Harare International Airport. Replete with "injured passengers", "distressed relatives" and even a press report by the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe's boss confirming the crash, the entire ordeal was later revealed to have been a simulation.