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Plane thief pulls off 'superhuman' landing
September 17 2002 at 05:39PM
An unusual thief, one with exceptional flying skills, was still on the lose late on Tuesday afternoon after leaving his booty on the N4 highway near Bronkhorstspruit.
"I can't believe I'm standing in the middle of the road next to my plane," commercial pilot Carlos Garcia Cabral said from the scene on Tuesday morning.
The Cessna 206 Turbo, a so-called "jump-ship", was used every weekend to transport parachutists at Modimolle (formerly Nylstroom) in Limpopo, he said.
It was brought to Pretoria's Wonderboom airport on Sunday for its 100-hourly inspection and taken to the maintenance section. But between 5pm on Monday and 5am on Tuesday, probably around 1am, someone boarded the aircraft and took off.
'It is superhuman'
The flight instruments record that it was flown around for over one-and-a-half hours, Cabral said. Then there was a fuel starvation and an emergency landing was performed on the westbound N4 between Witbank and Pretoria.
The arrogant aviator turned the aircraft off the road, left it there and took flight - without wings this time.
According to Cabral, who is also a flying instructor, this model was not easy to fly.
"I'm dumbstruck. He really knows what he's doing - especially with this model without (engine power) and at night. It is superhuman."
Despite his admiration for his foe's flying skills, he added: "Hopefully we'll track him down."
'God was watching'
Cabral said he was very grateful to have his beloved aircraft back, but was also amazed that there seemed to be no cars around and that nobody was hurt when the emergency landing took place. "God was watching," he says.
After establishing that there seemed to be nothing wrong with the aircraft, Cabral flew it back to Wonderboom, using the highway as a runway like the pirate pilot did.
Police Captain Piletji Sebola said part of the westbound half of the highway was closed for about 15 minutes around 11.30am for the take-off.
Cabral used about 300m of road to gather momentum before taking to the skies. By midday, the runway was a highway again, reserved for land traffic.
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