that there are certain irregularities in parts of the commission transcript that indicate that something on the CVR transcript had to be concealed. Klatzow put forward a theory that the fire likely involved substances that would not normally be carried on a passenger aircraft and that the fire was not likely a wood, cardboard, or plastic fire. South Africa was under an arms embargo at the time; the South African government therefore had to buy arms clandestinely. Klatzow's theory postulates that the government placed a rocket system in the cargo hold, and that vibration caused the ignition of unstable ammonium perchlorate, which is a chemical compound used as a missile propellant. Klatzow contends that conversation of the crew suggests that the fire started above the South China Sea, shortly after takeoff; he believes that this indicates that the voice recorder was not working for a long period of the flight or that the crew turned it off (CVRs in aircraft at that time only recorded thirty minutes). If this is the case, he says it is then likely that an unknown number of the passengers would have already died from smoke inhalation from the first fire. Klatzow believes that theory is consistent with reports that found most of the passengers were in the first class area at the front of the aircraft as smoke from the rear cabin forced them to move forward. The captain did not land the aircraft directly after the fire, Klatzow argues, because if he had he would have been arrested for endangering the lives of his passengers and it would have caused a major problem for South Africa, costing the country and SAA R400 million (approx. $200 million in 1987). Klatzow argues that the captain, who was also a reservist in the South African Air Force, would therefore have been ordered to carry on to South Africa in hopes of making it there before the aircraft's structural integrity gave in. These points have been refuted by others. On 20 July 2011, retired SAA captain Clair Fichardt announced that he had made a statement in connection with the missing Johannesburg air traffic control tapes, after he was persuaded to do so by Klatzow. Fichardt claimed that Captain James Deale admitted to handing the tapes to Captain Mickey Mitchell, who was chief pilot at the Johannesburg control centre on the night of the crash. Deale would further