Description

South African Airways Flight 295 (SA295/SAA295) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan, to Jan Smuts International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa, with a stopover in Plaisance Airport, Plaine Magnien, Mauritius. On 28 November 1987, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 747-200 Combi named Helderberg, experienced a catastrophic in-flight fire in the cargo area, broke up in mid-air, and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius, killing all 159 people on board. An extensive salvage operation was mounted to try to recover the aircraft's flight recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of 16,100 feet (4,900 m). The plane crash is also known as the Helderberg disaster.