This article deals with sudden death, bereavement and grief. BBC Action Line can direct you to help with these issues. For those watching on the beach on the morning of Wednesday, 28 April 1993, the first bodies were revealed by the rising sun.
Fishermen searched in and out of creeks, divers went out in boats and a helicopter hovered overhead. By lunchtime, black kit bags, wreckage and the remains of 24 of the 30 people aboard the plane had been reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean and brought ashore in Gabon. No more bodies would be found.
So begins a story that touched generations across two decades, laid bare a nation’s soul, and delivered triumph, just as unexpectedly as disaster. Four thousand miles away, another kit bag had been packed and its owner, one of Africa’s best footballers, was preparing to go for a long run. Kalusha Bwalya was Africa’s Player of the Year in 1988.
Earlier that year, he had scored a hat-trick as Zambia thrashed Italy 4-0 on the way to the Olympic quarter-finals in Seoul. Since then, he had moved to PSV Eindhoven, partnering Brazilian great Romario up front for the reigning Dutch champions. Bwalya and two other Europe-based players were due to meet up with their Zambia team-mates in Senegal, before the first of four qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup.
Zambia's stellar generation of players were strongly fancied to take their nation to the tournament for the first time. With the prospect of a flight itinerary taking him from Amsterdam to Dakar .