“If you’re going to sink a boat or crash a plane, it’s best not to do it in the SA maritime region,” a defence expert told Business Day.
This may sound tongue-in-cheek, but it reflects a dire reality: The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) is critically under-equipped to fulfil the country’s international search and rescue (SAR) obligations.
This comes as the defence budget was cut even further in the Treasury’s third iteration of the national budget.
Incidents requiring SAR are not unfamiliar to SA. Think about the 1987 Helderberg disaster, the sinking of the MTS Oceanos in 1991, the 1997 midair collision between the US Air Force and a German observation aircraft, and, more recently, the washing up of the Malaysian aircraft debris within our search and rescue region — even though the aircraft disappeared in Australia’s area of responsibility.
The likelihood of incidents requiring SAR is also increasing. Shipping traffic has grown around SA amid instability in the Red Sea, and cruise liners are growing larger. Flights across and to the polar region are also increasing. At the time of writing, a Qantas Airbus was en route from Sydney to Johannesburg, following a long-haul route that passed over the Southern Ocean.
SAR is the co-ordinated effort to locate missing aircraft or vessels and to save the lives of survivors. According to legislation, SANDF — including the SA Air Force (SAAF) and the navy — is tasked with providing suitable aircraft and ships to assist with SAR. They are supported by the department of transport, which is responsible for policy development, regulation and oversight.
“Under treaties with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, its sister the International Maritime Organisation, and various bilateral agreements, SA has undertaken to conduct SAR operations,” aviation expert Linden Birns said.
The region SA is responsible for includes the country’s entire land mass, its 1.5-million square kilometre coastline, its Territorial Waters and Exclusive Economic Zone, and vast portions of the South Atlantic, Southern and Indian Oceans — more than 12 times the country’s land area, “from the sea surface to the ocean floor,” Birns said.
The region is intersected by 30 major air routes and sees roughly 6,000 vessels pass through each year.
SA’s frigates would be likely to be the first vessels to respond but the lack of funding has resulted in a huge backlog in maintenance and refits, and so “of the four frigates, three are not operational”, defence analyst Dean Wingrin said.
He said the navy’s sole replenishment logistics vessel, the SAS Drakensberg, was also currently not operational.
He explained that “you need something that gets there fast, takes control, assesses the situation and ensures the right ships and aircraft are sent in”.
“[In other words] something that’s long-range, and you need something that can carry immediate supplies, whether it’s rescue life rafts, whether it’s food, water — whatever you can air drop to the vessels.”
Yet no dedicated maritime patrol aircraft have existed since the Avro Shackleton fleet was retired in 1984. Even its replacements — Dakotas, with “basic equipment and [which] had limited range compared to a maritime patrol aircraft” — have not flown since 2022, Wingrin said, adding that SA also had no maritime reconnaissance or surveillance aircraft.
“The only plane that we could possibly push into that space is the Hercules,” he said.
But Birns added that those Hercs, which have been in service for 63 years, were limited in range and endurance and “can only support a mission closer to the African mainland or a suitable island base”.
According to Wingrin, at most, one Herc is operational at a time — and often, none are.
Birns also noted fleets of Oryx and SuperLynx helicopters were mostly grounded, and that “crews have been unable to exercise and stay mission-ready”.
The government is well aware of its obligations. Collen Msibi, a department of transport spokesperson, said: “The provision of SAR services is an international obligation placed on SA by being a member of the International Instruments in the civil aviation and maritime transport sector.”
The long-overdue memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the department of defence to formalise military resource commitments is “still undergoing [departmental] internal processes”, he said.
The draft MOU expects the defence department (including the SANDF, SAAF and the navy) “to provide and supply aircraft, vessels, crew, and equipment when required during SAR operations and for evacuation of persons on-board a vessel for medical reasons,” Msibi said.
Prof Hennie Strydom, an expert in international law, said that if SA failed to comply with treaty provisions, it could be held liable for damages or loss of life.
This could land the country before the International Court of Justice, “if affected persons cannot obtain a remedy within SA”.
“Alternatively, an action could be brought directly against the country under international law for failing to comply with a multilateral treaty.”
That’s excluding the reputational damage SA would suffer, he added.
Despite numerous attempts to get comment, including extensions to deadlines, the SANDF did not respond to enquiries.
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