> ‘Drunken negro communists’ fired anti-aircraft salvo at former PM’s plane during African tour, archives reveal

The then-prime minister had been touring the continent in March and April to press for the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and an end to apartheid in South Africa.

While flying over Mozambique from Zimbabwe to Malawi on March 30, a salvo of surface-to-air missiles were fired at her RAF Vickers VC-10 aircraft, but all of them missed.

Mozambique was at the time engulfed in a civil war between the ruling Marxist-Leninist Frelimo party and the South Africa-backed Renamo guerrillas.

South Africa-backed Renamo guerrillas were fighting the Mozambique government’s Frelimo forces Credit: Oliver Hoffmann/Sygma

After Mrs Thatcher landed safely at Malawi’s Blantyre Airport, British officials demanded an explanation from their Mozambican counterparts, National Archive papers seen by the Daily Mail show.

Under pressure from Geoffrey Howe, the then-foreign secretary, Joaquim Chissano, the Mozambican president, promised a full investigation.

After more than two months passed without response, James Allan, the British ambassador to Mozambique, raised the matter again, telling Mr Howe: “I asked President Chissano on June 7 what the results were of his investigation.

“He confessed that he did not know. I said that it was very important that this should be pursued.”

Almost six months after the incident, on Sept 23, 1989, Charles Cullimore, the head of the Foreign Office’s central Africa department, wrote to Patrick Fairweather, a senior Foreign Office diplomat, and said it was “more than time that we returned to the charge with the Mozambicans over their continuing failure to produce an adequate explanation”.

In November 1989, Mozambican authorities admitted that Mrs Thatcher’s plane had been fired upon, saying it was accidental and blaming it on a drunken anti-aircraft battery commander.

Lord Moore, Mrs Thatcher’s biographer and a former Telegraph editor, was quoted as saying that the attack had been blamed on “a drunk Frelimo air battery commander”.

Mrs Thatcher reportedly noted the incident in her autobiography The Downing Street Years, but appeared to blame the Right-wing Renamo rebels rather than the Frelimo authorities.

She wrote: “The journey was short and so my VC10 was flying lower than usual – too low for comfort, since at one point we were fired on with missiles by Renamo. Fortunately they missed.”

Britain provided military training to the Mozambican army in Zimbabwe throughout the 1980s to help fight the Renamo guerrillas.