Sunday, March 16, 2025

January 31, 2022

Fake News? Report On Navy Cannon Shooting Simon’s Town Mountain Called Into Doubt

IOL has reported that the navy is trying to "conceal a training exercise that went wrong". The veracity of the report has now been called into question.

[imagesource:here]

Is the South African Navy trying to conceal a training exercise gone horribly wrong?

Or, on the other hand, is IOL peddling fake news?

Given that the website is still banging on about the Tembisa 10 saga, you can be forgiven for having extreme doubts when it comes to believing what the Iqbal Survé-led outlet publishes.

Let’s start with the IOL story before we dig deeper, published yesterday and titled ‘Naval cannon gun fired into Simon’s Town mountain by mistake’:

The incident is said to have taken place on Friday after a gun was fired from a corvette at the navy dockyard but instead of taking aim at the sea, it took aim at the mountain.

Weekend Argus reliably learnt of the incident from numerous sources including irate residents who confirmed the incident but were told it was being handled “in-house”.

High-ranking sources in the area also confirmed that the navy had a freak- accident during a training session.

One of those sources told IOL that the cannon’s shot “just missed a few of the houses” and “the navy is trying to keep this under wraps”.

This less than detailed map of the incident was also widely shared:

Defence analyst and expert Helmoed-Römer Heitman did go on the record for the story, saying a similar incident occurred in the 1960s and another in the 1980s.

As the story began to spread, and other outlets picked up on it, social media users began to cast doubt on the veracity of the claims:

Via this Twitter conversation, here’s the director at African Defence Review, Darren Olivier, casting further doubt on the claims:

He also added this:

Others in the area weighed in:

As a City Bowl resident, I still get a massive skrik every day at noon as the noon gun goes off.

Surely if a cannon gun was fired onto the mountain of Simon’s Town, there would be residents detailing the experience firsthand?

Back to the drawing board and the Tembisa 10 I guess, Iqbal.

[source:iol]