Serious incident to the Airbus A320 registered ZS-SZE operated by SAA on 11/05/2026 near Cape Town (South Africa)

Preliminary data based on the notification from the South African authorities:

The captain reported that on route to FACT, the Air Traffic controller (ATC) informed them that other traffic was unable to land in FACT and that a few go-arounds had occurred.
They decided to complete one hold before initiating the descent as they weighed their options. Before completing the hold, the ATC informed them that other traffic is now able to land in FACT. The captain and first officer then continued to FACT. They also informed the cabin crew to secure the cabin early before the descent in case they experienced any turbulence. The descent and downwind were without any serious turbulence.
The captain handed control over to the first officer for a monitored approach. The ATC gave them a heading to turn on to base and told them to maintain minimum clean speed because of traffic ahead and they complied.
Shortly after that, the aircraft experienced severe turbulence with a 20-40 knots(kts) negative windshear at 6000 feet (ft) above mean sea level (AMSL). The auto thrust went into ALPHA FLOOR and the crew selected Flaps1 to mitigate from the stall. At the same time the aircraft went into alternate law because of an elevator aileron computer (ELAC) Pitch Fault and then the autopilot disengaged. The crew were unable to reengage any of the AP’s.
After the negative windshear, the aircraft experienced a positive windshear and as the aircraft accelerated, the crew retracted the slats but still experienced an overspeed warning. The rest of the monitored approach was manually flown in alternate law, then direct law with landing gear extended until landing in FACT.