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JERUSALEM (Reuter) - South African newlyweds who made a video recording of the crash of a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines plane said Wednesday they sold the film for $65,000.
Dolf Gouws of Pretoria told Israel's army radio in a telephone interview he and his wife Marinda were honeymooning at a beach hotel in the Comoros Islands when the Boeing 767 plunged into the sea before their eyes, killing 125 people.
Marinda, 23, filmed the entire sequence including limbless bodies being dragged from the water.
Worldwide Television News paid $65,000 for the cassette, Gouws said.
South African newspapers said WTN was the highest bidder among television news organizations covering the crash, which 50 people survived. The papers said they were paid $87,000.
"I was laying on the beach. Me and my wife were getting a tan there and she was filming me and while she was busy with the video, the aircraft just came out of nowhere," Gouws told the radio.
"There were a few palm trees and it came out of the palm trees from the back side over the sea and it was about a meter (yard) above the sea ... my wife taped the whole thing and then its left wing touched the water," he said.
The radio said that at first the couple thought they were seeing an air show for tourists and only realized they were watching a doomed plane when it hit the water.
Gouws said they were happy to help investigators, who held on to the tape for several days.
"Although we made a great deal of money from the crash, we were really upset about it and felt terrible for the people who were killed," Marinda Gouws told South African newspapers.
Reuters/Variety