Floris Steenkamp
THE individuals who tragically lost their lives in the Robinson-44 helicopter crash near the Swakopmund aerodrome yesterday afternoon have been identified as Dirk von Weidts and Jacques Jacobs.
Von Weidts, who was in his late twenties, was just a few months away from qualifying as an aircraft maintenance engineer. Jacobs, on the other hand, was an experienced flight instructor and certified to conduct test flights for airworthy certification purposes.
At the time of the accident, von Weidts worked as an aviation security manager at a different aviation company in Swakopmund, unrelated to the company responsible for the helicopter’s maintenance and repair.
Jacobs was associated with the Swakopmund Flight Training Centre and had been requested to perform the test flight of the helicopter to assess specific systems. Like von Weidts, he was not employed by the company responsible for the helicopter’s repair and maintenance.
“We are a small and close-knit community at the Swakopmund airfield. Dirk and Jacques had coffee with us yesterday morning, as we do every day. It’s incredibly difficult for me to comprehend that just a few hours later, they would be taken from us,” shared an aviation company owner at the Swakopmund airfield.
The attached image depicts the crash site located east of the Swakopmund aerodrome, with the tail rotor section visible in the foreground and the main fuselage approximately 150 meters into the background. Aircraft accident investigators are currently present at the scene.
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