Dudu Myeni was not only chair of the board of SAA, her powers extended beyond Airways Park.
She influenced other state-owned companies in Jacob Zuma's reign.
This evidence was presented to deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo at the state capture commission this week.
Former Eskom chair Zola Tsotsi told Zondo that Myeni and Zuma called the shots when he was at the helm of the company.
But two other directors, Ben Ngubane and Venete Klein, contradicted Tsotsi, saying he bullied the board into making wrong decisions in 2015.
The year before, Eskom had been downgraded by Moody's.
The decisions by the board in March 2015 included suspending four senior executives, leading to a second downgrading.
Five years later, no-one will take responsibility, leaving speculation that the crisis was engineered to lay the ground for a Gupta takeover of Eskom.
This week, former Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona said that he, director of finance Tsholofelo Molefe, group capital head Dan Marokane, and commercial and technology boss Matshela Koko were suspended without having committed any wrongdoing.
Tsotsi said this was on an instruction from Myeni and had the blessing of Zuma. He said Zuma and Myeni had met in Durban four days before the suspensions were made.
"She [Myeni] made a statement to the effect that there is concern about the performance, technical and commercial, of Eskom and said there needs to be an inquiry into the problems at Eskom," said Tsotsi.
"She said there are complaints from the war room [a task team led by then deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa] that Eskom is not providing reliable information. She added that it was advisable that certain executives be suspended for the inquiry to proceed without impediments."
Ngubane and Klein said that regardless of where Tsotsi had got the idea, he had championed the decision with passion as his own.
According to Ngubane, Tsotsi made up charges that would be brought against the executives who were to be suspended.
Ngubane's version aligns with that of Myeni, who has previously denied Tsotsi's version. She said Tsotsi asked her for advice on how to remove Eskom executives.
"He said Mr Koko was caught on camera in a sexual escapade with a fellow employee at Eskom and that Mr Matona did not investigate this matter," Ngubane said.
"The FD [financial director] Ms Molefe had met someone who was putting in a tender and had a discussion with the person during the evaluation of the tender."
According to Ngubane and Klein, Tsotsi even had replacements in mind for Koko and Matona. Both replacements were rejected by the board because one had been suspended and the other was already an executive, but in a different position.
On Friday, Koko said Tsotsi had set out to get rid of him.
He said the video, allegedly of him in a compromising situation, had never surfaced.
"It was rubbish. That is why he failed to produce the video. He was just being a Tsotsi from Zola," said Koko.
Koko was the only executive to survive among those who were suspended.
The other three decided to accept a severance package with a combined cost of R18m, despite Eskom being broke at the time.
Matona was replaced as CEO of Eskom by Brian Molefe, whose relationship with the Gupta family is well documented.
Ngubane is due to be called back to the Zondo commission to testify about Gupta-friendly financial decisions that ensued at Eskom after Brian Molefe's takeover.
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