In his final communication with ground control, he shouted “fire” and “aircraft uncontrollable,” an Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) source told news website ZimLive.
A veteran of the Second Congo War, Ncube was a retired squadron leader who rejoined the Air Force as a trainer. His death underscores the Air Force’s ongoing struggles with an aging fleet and a lack of funding, training and maintenance.
“A dark cloud has engulfed the Zimbabwe Defence Forces family,” spokesperson Col. Alphios Makotore said.
Ncube’s aircraft, a Chengdu F-7, is thought to be one of 12 that China delivered to Zimbabwe in 1986. Modeled after a Soviet MiG 21, the Chengdu F-7 was first licensed to China in 1962 and ceased production in 2013.
The Air Force has a guiding motto: “Our Wings are the Fortress of the Nation.” With a series of crashes and deaths in recent years, however, that fortress has developed cracks that threaten to erode the nation’s trust.
“The growing number of accidents and the decline in operational readiness present serious national security concerns,” independent website Bulawayo 24 said in a June 2 article. “The Air Force’s diminished capacity restricts Zimbabwe’s ability to effectively respond to emergencies, defend its borders or participate fully in regional peacekeeping efforts. “While aviation inherently involves risk, the combination of worn-out equipment and insufficient maintenance has dangerously increased the likelihood of fatal accidents.”
The Air Force’s struggles date back to losses it incurred during the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which drained the fleet of important resources. The country’s financial constraints continue to hinder efforts to upgrade equipment.
In 2023, Zimbabwe sought technical assistance from the Nigerian Air Force to upgrade its air capabilities, replace obsolete equipment and address technical deficiencies with the Chengdu F-7 and the Russian-made Mi-35 helicopter.
Even Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has felt the impact of the Air Force’s struggles in recent years. In September 2024, his helicopter crashed shortly after takeoff at Masvingo airport in southeastern Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa was not aboard, and the government denied reports that the two pilots were killed in the accident. In August 2021, Mnangagwa was aboard his helicopter when a technical failure caused it to crash-land at a farm in Sandringham, about 64 kilometers southwest of the capital, Harare.
Zimbabwean critics have accused the government of covering up information and silencing at least one local journalist who reported on a military crash. Rather than seeing the Air Force as a source of pride, they lament how lax discipline, training and maintenance have created a deadly environment and eroded public trust in the military.
“As these incidents continue, there is mounting pressure on the government to urgently invest in and reform the Air Force,” Bulawayo 24 wrote. “The goal is to safeguard not only military personnel and civilians but also the nation’s leadership, whose lives have already been imperiled by these recurring crises. The legacy of past conflicts, ongoing financial woes and equipment shortfalls cast a long shadow over Zimbabwe’s military aviation future.”
In the 1970’s the then Rhodesian Air Force was regarding as the best “pocket Air Force” in the world. That inheritance began to tarnish after a couple of year when members were tortured and falsely accused of sabotage (it was actually a SA team doing the sabotage, but ZANU was paranoid and wouldn’t believe their own intelligence officers). But just like everything else inherited from those days, it has been allowed to decay & rot by those in power.