Jesus Christ Airlines (JCA Biafran airlift) video

[longer ron]

Does anybody have a copy of this programme please ? - I lent mine out years ago and never got it back.
Reply by PM if you prefer.
I am not on here every day but would reply asap.

rgds LR

[longer ron]

Just a bump for this thread - I have not been able to locate a copy of this programme yet,hopefully somebody has a copy hidden away somewhere !


rgds LR

[Capot]

Google is your friend, this is the top result, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365382/) and there were many more

[longer ron]

Thanks Capot - but Imdb just tells me about the programme (I have seen it a few times) - but the boss has not and that is why I need a copy of it so she can see it .
There is no link from imdb to anybody who has an available copy of the video that I can see.


rgds LR

[Capot]

OK, I understand, but what about some of the others down the page, eg this one? (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/45168.html) Admittedly there may be a language issue, but it may be worth trawling around a bit.....

[longer ron]

Thanks for your interest Capot - I had carried out a google check but had not come up with any likely sources - the Danish? link is from 2002 so unlikely to be still available.
I was hoping that a fellow forumite might have an old copy available.


thanks and rgds LR

[longer ron]

This programme is currently on youtube,a very interesting but harrowing programme for anybody who has not seen it before.
This version is recorded off TV,the first few seconds are a bit rough but it soon settles down to reasonable quality :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAWNwA1MitI

[treadigraph]

Many thanks longer ron, well worth watching. Must get my copy of Shadows back on the pile...

[skydiver69]

My Dad was a civil engineer who worked for Redpath Dorman Long and worked in Nigeria for 2 years around 1975. He was working on the rebuild of the bridge over the Niger at Onitsha which had been blown in 1970 during the Biafran civil war. One of the site foreman told him that his dad had been one of the people who had blown it up. We lived in Ikeja in Lagos where RDL had their head office and did most of their fabrication but Mum and I had one trip to Onitsha, flying out and driving back with my dad in a Land Rover. Whilst there we visited Port Harcourt and one of the old slave forts. I also recall seeing what I remember as an old aircraft dump which I think was near the road we took to get back to Lagos and given my 45 y/o memory, I seem to recall that there were a number of 2 or 4 engined planes there and although Mum took pics I have got no idea where they are now. Someone at the dump took exception to her taking the pics so she had to hide her camera and claim ignorance.

[l.garey]

Very interesting film, longer ron. Thanks. I remember the tragic days of the Biafran war all too well. Just a question: I assume the abandoned wrecks were filmed at Sao Tome. I wonder what happened to them. I can't see them on Google Earth. Just the orange An-74 that crashed in 2017. Is this the same site as the airport in Biafran days? Thanks.
Laurence

[treadigraph]

The two Connies are there, but very carefully camouflaged amongst buildings and with green growth I think. Been a while since I searched...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/8TJxkxCidJ2WSYBk6

Not sure how well that will work, using my phone which isn't as easy as the laptop (just passed Brooklands and Concorde G-BBDG et al on the train...)

[l.garey]

Thanks treadigraph, but I still can't see them. Must be well camouflaged! Did any of the DCs or C-97s survive too?
Laurence
PS: I got your link but it's fuzzier than on a big screen. Still can't see them.

[treadigraph]

Hee hee, playing with the tech on the bus... how's this?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/720x1480/20211124_103241_465b5daca3e11f6d1a3ae905decd5b602058e600.jpg

[tubby linton]

The two connies are now a bar Lockheed Constellation Survivors (http://www.conniesurvivors.com/CF-NAL.htm)

Lockheed Constellation Survivors (http://www.conniesurvivors.com/CF-NAM.htm)

[l.garey]

treadigraph: thanks for that masterful piece of sleuthing. At last I see them. And thanks, tubby, for the rather good news.
Laurence

[sandringham1]

One of the C-97G's used during the airlift HB-ILY does survive at the Pima Museum https://pimaair.org/museum-aircraft/boeing-c-97g/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/38998307@N05/49102609747

[treadigraph]

treadigraph: thanks for that masterful piece of sleuthing. At last I see them. And thanks, tubby, for the rather good news.
Laurence

Pleasure - I learned how to do minor image edits on my phone, which whiled away the bus journey! Now if I can remember it for next time....

[WHBM]

Further two Connies were flown back to Europe, one ended up at Faro and the other at Malta. Saw both in the 1980s-90s, I believe the Faro one, which likewise was a bar at the airport, was later broken up but I remember its triple tail being in a scrapyard nearby dominating everything else by about 2000. Don't know what happened to the Malta one.

Hank Wharton, US expat extraordinary, ran gun-running flights alongside the charitable operations from Sao Tome, and apparently the two sets of crews had various contact with one another. The gun-running crews were of course substantially paid compared to those on the charitable runs. The gun-running was paid for by overseas Biafran supporters in US dollars, and Wharton, based in Miami, had done this sort of thing elsewhere in the world. His Connies had the usual array of false registrations etc to put the authorities off the scent, although notably TAP in Lisbon, where several of the Connies had come from, apparently did various heavy maintenance tasks on them during it all. It was a time when, for both parties, there was an array of still serviceable but now unwanted piston-engined long range aircraft, only around 10 years old, available at residual/scrap prices. Aircraft ran at night without lights, the pale runway lights in Biafra would be turned on briefly for an arriving charity flight, who would often find one of Wharton's aircraft, last seen when they left Sao Tome, landing completely unannounced right behind them. I wonder what the navigators were using to position.

There were some lengthy descriptions of the operations in Propliner magazine back in the 1980s-90s.

[treadigraph]

He carried on with several 707s I think, there were some very dodgy registrations - I think Jack Malloch was involved in Biafra as well...

[Spooky 2]

Was this the same operation that Auggie Martin was flying for when his Connie crashed on landing?

[SpringHeeledJack]

In the Google Maps of Sao Tome where the hidden Connies are located there seems to be an orange/rusty ? aircraft of a good size sitting in the weeds/trees that appears to have overwing mounted engines. Any idea what this might be ?

[WHBM]

I believe that Jack Malloch's involvement in Biafra was separate to Hank Wharton; he used a DC7, which gave him pretty long range. There's a bit about the Biafra flights in his bio here :

Jack Malloch – the last of the true African legends – Part 1 (flightlineweekly.com) (https://www.flightlineweekly.com/post/jack-malloch-the-last-of-the-true-african-legends-part-1)

[longer ron]

SHJ - In the Google Maps of Sao Tome where the hidden Connies are located there seems to be an orange/rusty ? aircraft of a good size sitting in the weeds/trees that appears to have overwing mounted engines. Any idea what this might be ?

It is a Antonov AN 74 TK-100 of CAVOK Airlines,abandoned take off - overrun and thence down into a ravine 2017 ?.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Aha! That makes double sense, as it has overwing engines and an orange livery.Thanks

[Noyade]

This programme is currently on youtube,a very interesting but harrowing programme for anybody who has not seen it before.

Wow!
Many thanks for uploading that!

[l.garey]

Thanks again to those who gave more details to my original request about the Constellations.
Laurence