Gunship
18th Jun 2003, 18:15
A great piece written by John Matshikiza who is a fellow of the Wits Institute for Social and
Economic Research... :ok:
If it had happened in the skies over Europe or America the outcry
would have gone on for weeks. Heads would have rolled and safety standards would have been ostentatiously upgraded.
As it was, the story hardly made a ripple.
On the night of May 8 a Russian-built Ilyushin 76 jet aircraft had
taken off from the Congolese capital of Kinshasa with a complement of about 200 people.
They were mostly soldiers, policemen and their families headed for new postings in the southern city of Lubumbashi, several hundred kilometres away. The plane was being flown by a
Ukrainian crew.
As is common in the unregulated skies over the Congo, the plane in question was not a passenger aircraft. It was a military transport plane that had been inspanned for the purpose of carrying passengers, who would have been packed like cattle inside the fuselage, along with a hefty cargo of goods of various descriptions.
At 2 100m, with the plane still rising to its cruising altitude, the
cargo door at the back inexplicably blew out. Up to 160 of the hapless passengers were sucked out in its wake, falling to their deaths in the jungle below.
What a way to go.
Miraculously, the pilots managed to stabilise the aircraft and turn it back towards Kinshasa, where it made a safe landing.
Although it was impossible to completely black out this news, the
Kinshasa authorities did their best to suppress it. While survivors of the tragedy told of the majority of the passengers falling to their deaths, government spokespersons maintained that only seven people had died.
The fact that the victims were merely members of the armed
forces and their families made it easier for authorities to keep the
grisly details away from the public gaze. After all, soldiers and
policemen (and their loved ones, presumably) take all sorts of risks in the course of their duties. Flying in rickety aircraft is merely an occupational hazard.
The fact is that this kind of air travel is a daily hazard for anyone
travelling in the Congo. Although there are some formal passenger airlines criss-crossing its skies, there is a lot of informal stuff going on as well. This is inevitable in a country with no decent infrastructure to speak of — no substantial railway networks, for example, in a country that is as vast as the whole of Western Europe.
To get from A to B within a reasonable time frame you have to take your chances and hop on whatever aircraft is available.
Flying in the Congo gives new meaning to the expression "a wing and a prayer". But, as in the case of this latest disaster, prayers do not always get you to your destination in one piece.
I am not, generally speaking, a praying type of person. But my
experience of flying around in the Eastern Congo a few years back brought out surprising spiritual resources that I did not know I had in me. And I am somebody who usually enjoys the thrill of air travel.
I first flew from Bukavu, in the south-east, to the north-eastern city of Goma. The plane was about two hours late. The explanation given was that it had had to stop off to pick up freight.
When we climbed into its narrow fuselage, we could see what they meant. The eight-seater passenger cabin was almost impossible to negotiate because four huge truck exhaust pipes had been crammed into the gangway. We paying passengers had to do the best we could.
The two Congolese pilots with their impeccable haircuts flung the
little machine into the sky with careless ease and took us along the length of Lake Kivu to Goma. Luckily, the exhaust pipes stayed where they were until we landed.
From Goma I had a relatively uneventful flight to the central city of
Kisangani in an old Boeing 707. The English pilot remembered flying the same banged out old bus in Cambodia 10 years before — mercenaries flying mercenary machines across the trouble spots of the world.
But it was getting out of Kisangani that was the real drama.
We were due to get on board the same old 707 on its return run two days later. However, my Congolese hosts dilly-dallied through a series of political meetings, and by the time they had exhausted themselves the plane had gone.
My hosts slapped me on the back and told me not to worry — something was bound to show up.
Sure enough, as we sat at Kisangani airport, two squat Antonov
transport planes came in one after another, bringing in vital supplies to the people of the besieged city.
What did this have to do with us? I thought. I soon got the picture when my hosts rose to their feet, grabbed their bags and ambled over to the first aircraft. I ambled closely behind them.
It was then a question of joining the scrum on the gangplank as the Russian crew struggled to control the number of people desperate to clamber on board. I think we had the local militia on our side, because eventually we were seated on a curved bench in the plane's galley, just behind the pilot's left ear.
And then we took off. The Russian mechanic had secured the plane's cargo as best he could with some thick ropes, and had then locked the goods door casually before taking up a standing position to one side, pulling out a trashy novel, and starting to read. He remained standing all the way back to Goma, some three hours away across the sky.
The rest of us sat huddled on our benches, not even bothering to find out why we weren't entitled to have seat belts (let alone cabin service).
Miraculously, once again, we landed at Goma unscathed. On this
occasion, prayer had paid off.
All of this came flooding back when I read about the people sucked out of a transport plane over the Congolese jungle last month.
There, but for the grace of God, go I, I thought.
Thanks to the SAAFNEWSGROUP :ok:
Economic Research... :ok:
If it had happened in the skies over Europe or America the outcry
would have gone on for weeks. Heads would have rolled and safety standards would have been ostentatiously upgraded.
As it was, the story hardly made a ripple.
On the night of May 8 a Russian-built Ilyushin 76 jet aircraft had
taken off from the Congolese capital of Kinshasa with a complement of about 200 people.
They were mostly soldiers, policemen and their families headed for new postings in the southern city of Lubumbashi, several hundred kilometres away. The plane was being flown by a
Ukrainian crew.
As is common in the unregulated skies over the Congo, the plane in question was not a passenger aircraft. It was a military transport plane that had been inspanned for the purpose of carrying passengers, who would have been packed like cattle inside the fuselage, along with a hefty cargo of goods of various descriptions.
At 2 100m, with the plane still rising to its cruising altitude, the
cargo door at the back inexplicably blew out. Up to 160 of the hapless passengers were sucked out in its wake, falling to their deaths in the jungle below.
What a way to go.
Miraculously, the pilots managed to stabilise the aircraft and turn it back towards Kinshasa, where it made a safe landing.
Although it was impossible to completely black out this news, the
Kinshasa authorities did their best to suppress it. While survivors of the tragedy told of the majority of the passengers falling to their deaths, government spokespersons maintained that only seven people had died.
The fact that the victims were merely members of the armed
forces and their families made it easier for authorities to keep the
grisly details away from the public gaze. After all, soldiers and
policemen (and their loved ones, presumably) take all sorts of risks in the course of their duties. Flying in rickety aircraft is merely an occupational hazard.
The fact is that this kind of air travel is a daily hazard for anyone
travelling in the Congo. Although there are some formal passenger airlines criss-crossing its skies, there is a lot of informal stuff going on as well. This is inevitable in a country with no decent infrastructure to speak of — no substantial railway networks, for example, in a country that is as vast as the whole of Western Europe.
To get from A to B within a reasonable time frame you have to take your chances and hop on whatever aircraft is available.
Flying in the Congo gives new meaning to the expression "a wing and a prayer". But, as in the case of this latest disaster, prayers do not always get you to your destination in one piece.
I am not, generally speaking, a praying type of person. But my
experience of flying around in the Eastern Congo a few years back brought out surprising spiritual resources that I did not know I had in me. And I am somebody who usually enjoys the thrill of air travel.
I first flew from Bukavu, in the south-east, to the north-eastern city of Goma. The plane was about two hours late. The explanation given was that it had had to stop off to pick up freight.
When we climbed into its narrow fuselage, we could see what they meant. The eight-seater passenger cabin was almost impossible to negotiate because four huge truck exhaust pipes had been crammed into the gangway. We paying passengers had to do the best we could.
The two Congolese pilots with their impeccable haircuts flung the
little machine into the sky with careless ease and took us along the length of Lake Kivu to Goma. Luckily, the exhaust pipes stayed where they were until we landed.
From Goma I had a relatively uneventful flight to the central city of
Kisangani in an old Boeing 707. The English pilot remembered flying the same banged out old bus in Cambodia 10 years before — mercenaries flying mercenary machines across the trouble spots of the world.
But it was getting out of Kisangani that was the real drama.
We were due to get on board the same old 707 on its return run two days later. However, my Congolese hosts dilly-dallied through a series of political meetings, and by the time they had exhausted themselves the plane had gone.
My hosts slapped me on the back and told me not to worry — something was bound to show up.
Sure enough, as we sat at Kisangani airport, two squat Antonov
transport planes came in one after another, bringing in vital supplies to the people of the besieged city.
What did this have to do with us? I thought. I soon got the picture when my hosts rose to their feet, grabbed their bags and ambled over to the first aircraft. I ambled closely behind them.
It was then a question of joining the scrum on the gangplank as the Russian crew struggled to control the number of people desperate to clamber on board. I think we had the local militia on our side, because eventually we were seated on a curved bench in the plane's galley, just behind the pilot's left ear.
And then we took off. The Russian mechanic had secured the plane's cargo as best he could with some thick ropes, and had then locked the goods door casually before taking up a standing position to one side, pulling out a trashy novel, and starting to read. He remained standing all the way back to Goma, some three hours away across the sky.
The rest of us sat huddled on our benches, not even bothering to find out why we weren't entitled to have seat belts (let alone cabin service).
Miraculously, once again, we landed at Goma unscathed. On this
occasion, prayer had paid off.
All of this came flooding back when I read about the people sucked out of a transport plane over the Congolese jungle last month.
There, but for the grace of God, go I, I thought.
Thanks to the SAAFNEWSGROUP :ok: