Charl Viljoen, a pilot with Kalahari Air Services, died in a plane crash after attempting to murder his wife at her baby shower. Fortunately, both the wife and her unborn child survived and no one else was harmed.
According to The Citizen, Viljoen allegedly stormed out of a pilot’s club house in Botswana, South Africa before stealing a small civilian aircraft. Guests of the outdoor baby shower say he made several threatening phone calls and conducted two fly-bys just a few meters above the ground.
“He phoned his one mate on the ground there who was still at the party, and he wanted to know where his wife was,” one guest told The Citizen. “The guy that he called started shouting so that the 60 people attending get away.”
Viljoen died in the fiery crash, which damaged or destroyed another 13 vehicles. His wife and her guests were unharmed.
“They had a party at Matsieng,” a witness explained. “A baby shower, and that’s one of the Kalahari Air Services pilots and he had a fight with his wife there.”
“He actually hit his wife,” the witness continued, “and everybody told him to f*** off because you don’t treat a woman like that.”
According to the Matsieng flying club, Viljoen was not invited to the event. “Earlier in the afternoon the deceased pilot was an uninvited guest at a private function that was held at the Matsieng Flying Club facility at Matsieng Aerodrome. It is rumoured that the pilot was involved in a domestic dispute earlier in the afternoon,” the club’s spokesperson, Mark Mansfield, said in a public statement.
“The emergency services of the Kgatleng District Council were on the scene within minutes to attend to the post-impact fire and distress. These response actions are to be commended. It is believed that the pilot had no permission to fly the aircraft involved.”
Viljoen was certified as deceased later that day at the Deborah Retief Memorial Hospital.