On 24 January 1974, a Togo Air Force

Douglas C-47 Skytrain The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF, RAAF, RCAF, RNZAF, and SAAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remained ...

carrying several notable political figures crashed at an isolated location near the village of Sarakawa in northern

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

Gnassingbé Eyadéma Gnassingbé Eyadéma (; born Étienne Gnassingbé, 26 December 1935 – 5 February 2005) was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was immediately succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé. Eyadéma participated i ...

, the

President of Togo This is a list of presidents of Togo since the formation of the post of president in 1960, to the present day. A total of four people have served as president (not counting one acting president and two interim military officeholders). Additiona ...

, was on board the aircraft, which was flying from

Lomé Lomé is the capital and largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437

to his native village, Pya. As the C-47 descended for landing, it crashed near Sarakawa. Eyadéma survived, but claimed his French pilot and all three other passengers died. Eyadéma claimed the aircraft had been sabotaged after he had reneged on an agreement with a French company over the use of a

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phosph ...

mine. Eyadéma attributed his survival to mystical powers and declared 24 January to be "Economic Liberation Day." Eyadéma even changed his first name from Étienne to Gnassingbé to remember the date of the day he survived the crash. Following the incident, a monument was established by the Togolese government near the crash site. The monument features a statue of Eyadéma standing on a plinth, flanked by images of his generals who died in the crash. Eyadéma was not the sole survivor of the crash, but he deliberately misrepresented the details of the accident to make himself look like a hero with superhuman strength who miraculously survived the disaster when everyone else was killed. Eyadéma claimed that the crash was not an accident but was a conspiracy to kill him, plotted by French imperialists who did not like his plan (announced on 10 January 1974) to nationalize the important phosphate mining company, the (CTMB or Cotomib). His C-47 was replaced by a new presidential jet, a Gulfstream II (registered as 5V-TAA) which was itself damaged beyond repair in a crash on 26 December of the same year, which killed three members of the crew, but which all three of the passengers on board survived. Eyadéma was not on board the jet at the time.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Togo Plane Crash, 1974 Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas C-47 Skytrain Aviation accidents and incidents in 1974 Aviation accidents and incidents in Togo Aviation accidents and incidents involving state leaders January 1974 events in Africa

Plane crash An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of fl ...