Cashel South African Air Force Alouette crash

An Alouette III helicopter of the South African Air Force (SAAF) crewed by an SAAF pilot and a flight technician was flying from Umtali to Melsetter with four senior Rhodesian Army officers as passengers. These were Major General John Shaw, Colonel David Parker, Captain John Lamb and Captain Ian Robinson. Parker had ended his tenure as commanding officer of the Rhodesian Light Infantry almost a month earlier on 30 November, whereupon he was promoted from Lieutenant-Colonel to the rank of Colonel. The Alouette III was one of several loaned to Rhodesia to assist in counter-insurgency operations during the Rhodesian Bush War.

Flying at low altitude in accordance with procedure, the helicopter flew into a rusty, long forgotten hawser cable near Cashel just south of Umtali. The cable had years before been used to pass logs down a steep slope and was unmarked on any maps. The airframe began to break up as the helicopter spun out of control and crashed. All on board were killed except for the pilot, who was seriously injured, losing one of his legs.[1]

The historians Hannes Wessels and P. J. H. Petter-Bowyer agree that the deaths of the Rhodesian officers, in particular the death of Colonel Parker, affected the course of the Bush War in the guerrillas' favour: Shaw was Rhodesia's "next Army Commander", says Petter-Bowyer, and Parker "its finest field commander". The Colonel was "earmarked for bigger things", Wessels writes, "... his loss was a considerable blow to the Rhodesian war effort."[1][2]