Attack on Pan African Airlines base in Nigeria
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Attack on Pan African Airlines base in Nigeria
Short brief on camp/airfield attack in Escravos, Nigeria, by a Pan African pilot who was there:
If you read this and want to forward it to anyone feel free!
On Friday the 4th of February I had ridden my bike to the Chevron hangar at our Escravos Base at around 0505, and noticed a lot of police at the gate putting on gear. They waved to me and I waved to them and went out the main gate and kept going to the runway.
About every 50 meters on the runway was the local security guards, most in riot gear, but once again no warnings, no sirens, nothing; they just waved. I figured a security exercise was going on, as that happens every so often.
I went into the hangar and went to the company computer, and at about 0510 Jim B.came in as the the phone rang. He answered it and said "The camp's being overrun?!" and "How many intruders?".
He put down the phone and at that time shots were being fired on camp.
I then got a call from John G., our manager at camp, who said the camp is closed, intruders inside the barbed wire and some buildings being invaded by intruders.
Jim called the other PAAN employees into the crew room while I turned off the hangar lights, as it was still dark.
Jim was at the kitchen hall window and said "Smoke, look at all the people on the runway!". I ran over and saw lots of people coming through a hole in the wire opposite the control tower, and the guards were just watching them go by (A smart move on their part).
Jim called one of the managers and told him we needed help, and fast, as we were marooned.
One of the Pan African managers (Still in camp) said it would be awhile because the soldiers were scattered everywhere, and one of the camp security guards had run by him as the guard was ripping off his uniform.
In the meantime intruders were in the camp trying to get into some of the employee rooms, and most were carrying machetes.
The director of PAAN called and said to lay low for awhile until help could get to us. I thought about writing that down, but then things got too busy real quick:
We made sure everyone was in the crew room, about 10 in all, and two guards showed up before we locked the doors.
Jim said, "Are you guys our reinforcements?"
They said "No, we came in through a hole in the parts room".
Needless to say, we were pretty happy about that.
We went back into the hallway, peeked out the window and saw the crowd head for the helicopters while the two expat engineers put equipment in front of the hole.
The good news is that the crowd went first to the work stands and then climbed onto the helos. As you know, Chevron policy says you can't climb onto the aircraft without using the stands for safety reasons, so at least they were following Chevron safety standards.
If they hadn't, Jim and I would've had to go outside to issue the Chevron "Stop" cards to the crowd due to using unsafe work practices.
They then smashed the windshields of two of the Bell 407's and one of the 412's, and they were using the fire extinguishers as hammers on some others. They pulled the fuel hoses out to each aircraft, so by now it was getting real interesting!
They then looked at the hangar, and headed right for us.
I then decided to head to the crew room with Jim and lock the doors.We stayed in the crew room as they tried to pry the air con unit out of the wall to get in, but luckily it held. Up to that time Jim and I were like Meerkats looking out the window, popping up and down as the situation dictated, but then we figured it was time to lay low.
One of the pilots had called just before we locked the crew room door and said the crowd had machetes and was looking for anyone with authority. I offered Ernest (An Air Log engineer) $60.00 to swap my white uniform shirt for his blue one, but he didn't think it was enough.
At 0745 we got a call that soldiers were coming to get us out, and a little later an armed detachment of soldiers arrived as other soldiers were shooting teargas at the crowd along the runway, and they got us out in one of their trucks. We got teargas in our eyes, and we could see soldiers firing round after round of teargas at the crowd as one kid kept throwing buckets of water on the gas grenades, but we made it to camp without further incident.
At that time camp was in a lockdown. At 0900 I could hear some shouting outside my camp room and then someone banged on my door. I said "Dave ain't here!". More banging on my door and a South African pilot identified himself and wanted in to give me a briefing. He must not have seen "Cheech and Chong", because he wanted to know who Dave was.No sense of humor.
Every three or four hours an announcement over the PA advised all camp residents to stay locked in their rooms, and this went on for three days, with cautious meals in the dining hall.
They couldn't get the holes fixed in the fences for three days as everytime a work crew went to do the work, armed villagers showed up, and the work crews thought discretion was the better part of valor and left.
They got some Dash 8's in on Monday the 6th to evac 400 Chevron personnel, and soldiers and teargas kept the crowd back each time the aircraft landed and took off.
I had a feeling something like this was going to happen:
Last week I'm flying a Bristow 212 (5N-ALU) with a Bristow F/O (Young Nigerian named B., real sharp guy) and we got word one of the Radio room guys woke up dead, and they wanted me and B. to fly to Whiskey Tango with the occupied coffin and one pax.
When I got in the aircraft at the head of the casket (to ease in the loading due to narrowness of the cargo area), the lid kept popping up. I kept trying to ignore anything under the lid and hurried to get it loaded.
I'm not real fond of carrying bodies in the first place, but it's usually in bags, and this coffin was real Dracula looking. Add the fact that the lid kept popping up, and I was really getting antsy. After it got loaded, I told B. that if the lid popped up inflight, he'd be the only one left to make the landing at Warri.
When I got back to the aircraft to do the startup, I noticed 3 cargo straps across the coffin really strapped tight. I guess they didn't understand my warped sense of humor, and they didn't want to take any chances with me bailing out if the lid popped up one more time, I thought that was a hoot.
Hopefully this mess should be settled by the start of my flying to my next shift, but I feel sure it's going to continue, and right now we aren't being paid enough for that stuff. We can't carry weapons, and that's the hard part, as most of us are ex-military and some of us were former contract pilots for the US DEA in Guatemala, Columbia and Peru, and also have time in lots of other war zones.
The next year in Nigeria is going to get very interesting!
Fly Safe, Smokey
If you read this and want to forward it to anyone feel free!
On Friday the 4th of February I had ridden my bike to the Chevron hangar at our Escravos Base at around 0505, and noticed a lot of police at the gate putting on gear. They waved to me and I waved to them and went out the main gate and kept going to the runway.
About every 50 meters on the runway was the local security guards, most in riot gear, but once again no warnings, no sirens, nothing; they just waved. I figured a security exercise was going on, as that happens every so often.
I went into the hangar and went to the company computer, and at about 0510 Jim B.came in as the the phone rang. He answered it and said "The camp's being overrun?!" and "How many intruders?".
He put down the phone and at that time shots were being fired on camp.
I then got a call from John G., our manager at camp, who said the camp is closed, intruders inside the barbed wire and some buildings being invaded by intruders.
Jim called the other PAAN employees into the crew room while I turned off the hangar lights, as it was still dark.
Jim was at the kitchen hall window and said "Smoke, look at all the people on the runway!". I ran over and saw lots of people coming through a hole in the wire opposite the control tower, and the guards were just watching them go by (A smart move on their part).
Jim called one of the managers and told him we needed help, and fast, as we were marooned.
One of the Pan African managers (Still in camp) said it would be awhile because the soldiers were scattered everywhere, and one of the camp security guards had run by him as the guard was ripping off his uniform.
In the meantime intruders were in the camp trying to get into some of the employee rooms, and most were carrying machetes.
The director of PAAN called and said to lay low for awhile until help could get to us. I thought about writing that down, but then things got too busy real quick:
We made sure everyone was in the crew room, about 10 in all, and two guards showed up before we locked the doors.
Jim said, "Are you guys our reinforcements?"
They said "No, we came in through a hole in the parts room".
Needless to say, we were pretty happy about that.
We went back into the hallway, peeked out the window and saw the crowd head for the helicopters while the two expat engineers put equipment in front of the hole.
The good news is that the crowd went first to the work stands and then climbed onto the helos. As you know, Chevron policy says you can't climb onto the aircraft without using the stands for safety reasons, so at least they were following Chevron safety standards.
If they hadn't, Jim and I would've had to go outside to issue the Chevron "Stop" cards to the crowd due to using unsafe work practices.
They then smashed the windshields of two of the Bell 407's and one of the 412's, and they were using the fire extinguishers as hammers on some others. They pulled the fuel hoses out to each aircraft, so by now it was getting real interesting!
They then looked at the hangar, and headed right for us.
I then decided to head to the crew room with Jim and lock the doors.We stayed in the crew room as they tried to pry the air con unit out of the wall to get in, but luckily it held. Up to that time Jim and I were like Meerkats looking out the window, popping up and down as the situation dictated, but then we figured it was time to lay low.
One of the pilots had called just before we locked the crew room door and said the crowd had machetes and was looking for anyone with authority. I offered Ernest (An Air Log engineer) $60.00 to swap my white uniform shirt for his blue one, but he didn't think it was enough.
At 0745 we got a call that soldiers were coming to get us out, and a little later an armed detachment of soldiers arrived as other soldiers were shooting teargas at the crowd along the runway, and they got us out in one of their trucks. We got teargas in our eyes, and we could see soldiers firing round after round of teargas at the crowd as one kid kept throwing buckets of water on the gas grenades, but we made it to camp without further incident.
At that time camp was in a lockdown. At 0900 I could hear some shouting outside my camp room and then someone banged on my door. I said "Dave ain't here!". More banging on my door and a South African pilot identified himself and wanted in to give me a briefing. He must not have seen "Cheech and Chong", because he wanted to know who Dave was.No sense of humor.
Every three or four hours an announcement over the PA advised all camp residents to stay locked in their rooms, and this went on for three days, with cautious meals in the dining hall.
They couldn't get the holes fixed in the fences for three days as everytime a work crew went to do the work, armed villagers showed up, and the work crews thought discretion was the better part of valor and left.
They got some Dash 8's in on Monday the 6th to evac 400 Chevron personnel, and soldiers and teargas kept the crowd back each time the aircraft landed and took off.
I had a feeling something like this was going to happen:
Last week I'm flying a Bristow 212 (5N-ALU) with a Bristow F/O (Young Nigerian named B., real sharp guy) and we got word one of the Radio room guys woke up dead, and they wanted me and B. to fly to Whiskey Tango with the occupied coffin and one pax.
When I got in the aircraft at the head of the casket (to ease in the loading due to narrowness of the cargo area), the lid kept popping up. I kept trying to ignore anything under the lid and hurried to get it loaded.
I'm not real fond of carrying bodies in the first place, but it's usually in bags, and this coffin was real Dracula looking. Add the fact that the lid kept popping up, and I was really getting antsy. After it got loaded, I told B. that if the lid popped up inflight, he'd be the only one left to make the landing at Warri.
When I got back to the aircraft to do the startup, I noticed 3 cargo straps across the coffin really strapped tight. I guess they didn't understand my warped sense of humor, and they didn't want to take any chances with me bailing out if the lid popped up one more time, I thought that was a hoot.
Hopefully this mess should be settled by the start of my flying to my next shift, but I feel sure it's going to continue, and right now we aren't being paid enough for that stuff. We can't carry weapons, and that's the hard part, as most of us are ex-military and some of us were former contract pilots for the US DEA in Guatemala, Columbia and Peru, and also have time in lots of other war zones.
The next year in Nigeria is going to get very interesting!
Fly Safe, Smokey
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That is a very interesting story. Wonder from where those intruders could get there as Escravos is surrounded by mangrove swamps. I do agree also that within a year there could be some kind of wild "party" going on again.
GunsssR4ever
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And we always thought gunship and solenta pilot's in Abidjan had interesting stories ..
God Bless you guys are ok
Thanks for a great bit of reading
God Bless you guys are ok
Thanks for a great bit of reading
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Helismoke,
Thanks very much for letting us know what went on in Escravos.
I'm really pleased to hear that nobody was seriously hurt in what sounds to have been a very life-threatening situation. It sounds as if the Delta region is hotting up again and I just hope we don't go back to the bad old days of 7 or 8 years ago, of hijackings and kidnappings. Hopefully, with PPRuNe at least people in the outside world will get to hear of them.
Keep us updated and thanks again.
Thanks very much for letting us know what went on in Escravos.
I'm really pleased to hear that nobody was seriously hurt in what sounds to have been a very life-threatening situation. It sounds as if the Delta region is hotting up again and I just hope we don't go back to the bad old days of 7 or 8 years ago, of hijackings and kidnappings. Hopefully, with PPRuNe at least people in the outside world will get to hear of them.
Keep us updated and thanks again.
