Gabon Air Disaster - Zambian Heroes | Chapter 2 - The Tragedy

Make sure to check out Chapter 1 The Dream Team here:    • Zambian Heroes - Chapter 1 "The Dream...  

The year is 1993. Zambian football is feeling confident about finally making it to the World Cup. This year it will be held in the United States and it would be the first time for many of the team to go to the US. Their victory over Italy in 1988 in the Olympics seems like forever ago but the players feel like they are building to their big break, in which they will make it to the World Cup tournament.

Zambia has had their chances to win big tournaments. In 1990 they were bounced in the semifinals of the pan-African tournament the “African Cup of Nations”. Then in 1992 they were eliminated in the first round of the knockout round. But this year would be different. This was going to be their year. Their route to World Cup qualification was going to come through their success at the African Cup of Nations. Kalusha Bwalya had his duties with his club team and so was not able to make it to the first match, but would make it to the next match in Senegal. Zambia played against Mauritius on April 25th 1993 without Kalusha Bwalya and the team dominated with a 3-0 win.

After their win the team were off to Senegal. Since the football association of Zambia typically did not have a large budget they would use the military planes as their mode of transport between matches.

The route required many stops for refueling including Kinshasa Zaire (now DRC), Libreville Gabon, Abidjan, before landing in Dakar Senegal.

It was on their last stop before making the diagonal flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The pilot had been working long hours and was just hoping to complete the flight and get some rest. The DHC 5D Buffalo is a dual prop plane which made it very loud and noisy, an uncomfortable experience for the players on board. As the plane lifted off from Gabon the pilot noticed they had an engine fire. As soon as the realization is made, the pilot reaches up to switch off the engine to put out the fire. But the nose of the plane starts to dip and the engine fire persists, they had just taken off the wrong engine. But they didn’t have the airspeed our altitude to fix the mistake that was made. The plane crashed right off the coast of Gabon in the ocean and all 25 passengers and 5 crew members perished in the crash.

As the investigation went on both Gabon and Zambia blamed one another for causes of the accident. But the tragedy nevertheless brought great sorrow on the people of Zambia.

Frederick Chiluba, the 2nd president of Zambia addressed the nation saying, “We must start now, this month, to build a new team, so the hopes don’t lie within these graves. I have decided that we will continue the competition in the African cup of Nations and for the World Cup.”

The resolve of the nation of Zambia was tested.