S. Africa Asks U.S. Aid on Flight Recorders

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said Tuesday that he has asked the United States to send an expert to help decode the flight recorders of the Soviet-built jet that crashed Oct. 19, killing President Samora M. Machel of Mozambique and 33 others.

Botha said Soviet investigators probing the crash of the Tupolev 134 want to return to Moscow today with the four data recorders.

However, he said the recorders will not be sent to the Soviet Union until an agreement is reached on an impartial decoding of data and playing of the cockpit voice tape.

The cockpit voice recorder could reveal the conversation of the Soviet pilot and other crew members in the last few moments before the plane hit a hillside just inside South Africa’s border with Mozambique.

“We are anxious to know what the recordings contain, but we must be sure it is done impartially,” Botha told reporters in Pretoria. “I have today asked the U.S. State Department to make available an expert in the field and to send him to South Africa to advise us if the playbacks can be done in South Africa or elsewhere.”