Two adventures for the price of one

Friday was a good day for a smoke.

Can nothing go smoothly for me here in Africa? I admit that if it continuously did then I would be complaining about the lack of spice and adventure in life, but how bout some moderation(?) for those of you listening in upstairs. Huh guys? The ‘epic’ Beechcraft 1900D trip for N’djamena to Entebbe, Uganda proved nothing but.

I sit relaxed with a full stomach, beer in hand, overlooking the mist shrouded green hills of Kampala which lays on the shores of the Oceanus Lake Victoria and just miles from the origin of the Nile. Its funny to sit here and think that just barely over 100 years ago Europeans like Speke, Livingstone, Baker, Burton and Stanley were sacrificing theirs and others lives, time, resources and sanity to find the place that I now casually sit staring out upon. Its so nice to see green. Its beautiful here, absolutely stunning. There are a million birds chirping and singing, flowers adorn most the shrubs, palm fronds whisper with a breath of wind. In the distant background, competing against the roosters, a pick up truck is driving around with a man preaching the word of Jesus in Kiswahili thru a loudspeaker seated in the back. Did I mention its green? Music too, beautiful African music, drums, steel guitars, and joyous sounding women, not the shreikish, ear piercing yelping of Chadian Arabic played through blown out speakers. Aah, it is cool, a perfect 75 degrees or so in the evening breeze. I too, love Entebbe now.





The journey here started quiet, on schedule and calm, as smooth as a baby’s ass. We timed our departure perfectly and our arrival into Bangui, Central African Republic was precisely on schedule with what I had planned out. The Bangui airport sits just 2 miles north of the international border with Democratic Republic of Congo. We landed, fumbled our way through parking instructions, communicated through mixed French and finger puppet shows that fuel was needed, and negotiated a price. I then paid the amazingly flexible airport landing fees. “How much for fees?” “Quat million US dollars, Monsieur” “WHAT!! (chuckle) you want 4 million dollars for landing here!!! Wow, you’ve been watching Austin Powers movies haven’t you! (good laugh that lasts at least 30 seconds)…How bout I give you 20 dollars and you stamp my little piece of paper?” Long thought with the look of confusion on his brow… “Aaah,…o…k”

I then discretely emptied a water bottle containing a trace amount of urine into the trees and tossed the empty container back into the airplane.

So it was done. I sat relaxed for a few minutes looking over my flight plan for the next leg, making sure it matched up with the route charts. Through my thoughts I heard an electronic double beep and looked up to see Anis walking out the aircraft door with his camera. “Hmm” I thought… “I wonder what the picture situation is in Central African Republic vs. Tchad…hmmm”. Not four seconds passed between the flash of this thought and when I heard my name being feverishly called from outside the aircraft.

I laid the paperwork down, arose and peeked my head out the doorway to see Anis being escorted by 3 large men in military/police uniforms towards the airport government buildings. “What the f#$k”. I grabbed my sunglasses and rushed out the aircraft, our engineer sheepishly looking on from behind the wing.

Catching up with the men and Anis, I followed them into the dark, electricity-less building where we were led thru a labyrinth of concrete corridors, geckos scattering about the walls, to a small room with a desk, and three chairs. 2 on one side, for us, the perpetrators, and 1 on the other, for the head honcho. His hench men towered over us. The door was slammed shut. Everyone smoked. It was straight out of a movie.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded, a bit more comfortable now that I was not dealing with jihad happy Muslims.

In French which I barely understood it was explained that Anis was under arrest for the taking of illegal pictures in a security sensitive area. I had to laugh, what else could I do? A few seconds passed, my giggling was grimaced upon. It was then decided that I was under arrest as well for emptying my urine bottle into the trees. This time I really had to laugh. I mean, where else in the world could you be ‘arrested’ for such heinous crimes?

Then another man was brought in, this was our supposed ‘savior’. He spoke English to a minute degree, but helped translate the yelling from both sides to both sides. “He says there are…deux…crimes. The fine is very, very big and he hopes you pay because otherwise he be forced to jail you.”

The crimes were explained. The henchmen stared down at us. Everyone still smoked. I knew it was just a game, just a great Central African money making game, so I played along, albeit a bit nervously. First I told them all that the urine was actually Gatorade, but that it was too warm so I needed to throw it out. When they did not buy it I confidently (at least outwardly) slammed my chair back, shot up and sternly stated that I will take them all to smell the dirt to prove it, waving my fingers around demonstrating how I would dip them in the dirt taste and smell it. This obviously did the trick, or maybe they just found my actions comical. I was now free from jail sentences, Anis remained.

“It is very, very unfortunate. You have made a very big crime taking pictures of secret things, he says” our translator told us.

“I do not see how taking a picture of our own aircraft is a secret!” I blurted, “but I will make sure that this man is FIRED and heavily disciplined when we get to Uganda. Tell him we are very sorry but that we must go!”

The message was relayed. The police chief stared at me, tapped his 3rd or 4th smoke against the filling ashtray and then rambled a series of numbers to the translator in French while shaking his head and sighing in between words. I understood most of it and began laughing again. Everyone stared.

“He says that it is unfortunate, but for this big crime the fine is…”

“I know, I know, I heard him. He said 500,000 CFAs. That is 1000 dollars US. Tell him we cannot do that. We have only enough money to get to Entebbe where his grandmother is in the hospital and my car is broken. Then there is the problem with the flux capacitator (?) in the airplane which needs to be fixed! We don’t have any money, I’m terribly sorry.” I decided to have fun with it, and confuse the hell out of the whole team. Maybe now would have been the ideal time for the 10,000 year old squirrel comment.

Another round of bargaining, and another. I stared everyone down while they spoke, I laughed at them when they came back with more outlandish figures. After 20 minutes or so I bartered to get my FO and his camera back for 20 US dollars and a pack of Marlboros I had been carrying for situations just like this. I slapped the goods on the table and we both stormed out before another word could be said. As soon as we were clear of onlookers, I began laughing hysterically. It was actually kind of fun, in a frustrating kind of way.

After Bangui the sailing was smooth. We glided for hours over the Congo with nothing but an ocean of green forest and stratus clouds below. Approaching the mountains that form the border between Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda an armada of massive black thunderstorms drifted into sight. Thus started phase two of the epic with me being overly confident in my recent victories. First mistake: there’s no room for a big head in aviation.

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

The weave started, I preformed a beautiful slalom like ballet thru the towers and we made it to within 30 miles of Entebbe when we hit the wall. On the approach down I made the fatal mistake of putting too much trust in our airborne weather radar, and did not use the clues outside the window as well as I should have. Ahead and to the right was black, it was ominous, it was nothing but intimidating. Straight ahead was a black-grey, still ominous, still scary. Mr. Weather Radar 3000-xp.42, though, had else to say. Straight ahead he said was fine, nothing but a little rain. He agreed that ahead and to the right, at our 1:30 position was bad, and agreed with my resistance to trying that route. But Mr. Weather Radar 3000-xp.42 also said that to my immediate right at 3 o‘clock, which looked like the best bet to me from my looking outside the window, was the worst of all. He said that if I were to go that way I would meet an instant demise. Aah, Mr. Radar, how your ways are faulted!

I put my shaky confidence in the radar and chose to trust its precipitation detecting array. (Game-show wrong answer buzzer inserted here) We flew straight ahead, into what was supposed to be just precipitation of medium intensity and found instead what the moisture laden tropics have in mind for a thunderstorm. When it became readily apparent that I made the very wrong decision for the matter at hand my confidence and arrogance stepped up, my ego kicked in, and the two little voices in my head began arguing. One said “aah, no big deal, your experienced with thunderstorms, just slow it down, and punch thru this thing, worst case scenario is you’ll bump around. Nothing you cannot handle!”. Then of course there was the other “RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY” in the Monty Python-ish voice. I chose arrogance.

I can state confidently that no one has ever operated a 1900D underwater before and lived to tell about it. I am also fairly confident that yesterday, for all intensive purposes, I may have emerged from the other side of this storm being the first person to have come as physically close to flying in pure liquid H2O as possible, and I do not wish to ever do it again. Ever. Humbled is not the word to describe how I felt while stuck in the black mass whose engulfing body seemed to never end. I was absolutely, positively f-ing scared. The two voices in my head were replaced by one. One that repeatedly warned of imminent engine flame-out and becoming a smoldering mass of aluminum on the green hills below. For those who are not pilots, an engine flame-out is when either the oxygen or fuel required for combustion is no longer sufficient and therefore combustion ceases to exist, aka, your flying ceases to exist in a positive manner. Yesterday was the first time that I honestly believed I was about to douse a turbine engine out, it was as if someone were spraying a firehose into each intake.

So, we found ourselves in the mess. Now how to get out? Lower, underneath? The controller couldn’t give us lower. There were mostly invisible hills below. Back the way we came? Our entry point ceased to exist, it closed in behind us as that wonderful biblical sea did for Moses. I’ve never felt trapped or claustrophobic in an airplane before yesterday. “Which way is the least bad” we continually asked the approach controller, becoming increasingly panicked. ATC had no idea, seems they have no radar. Anis suddenly could not determine our position by reading the instruments, he began to lock up. The controller asked for reports on our whereabouts and the response from the seat next to me was increasingly incoherent and inaccurate. Panic was coming…it was coming quickly. “Just take a deep breath and take it easy” I kept quietly telling myself, but its hard to convince yourself of a bright outcome when nothing but darkness surrounds.

Then a piece of ground. A tree. Verdant green below, a couple thousand feet below actually. “Do I try and go beneath and at least try to visually avoid some of the precip?”. This, in normal circumstances is not something I would have done, due to my fear of getting too low only to find myself at the receiving end of a downdraft whose force exceeds that which my engines can create. The hell with it. “Ask for lower!”

“Negative, Kilo one, maintain 6 thousand feet, there is terrain in that area”

I ripped the chart from the center pedestal and found Entebbe. In blue letters I saw 5.7, meaning that the highest obstruction was 4,700 feet, but where? Faced with the option of flame out I chose to ignore our controller and dropped, completely illegally 1000 feet, to 5000 feet. Then to 4900 feet, and told Anis to keep telling me which way looked lighter. “Just say right, left, or straight ahead.” After two minutes or so of following Anis’s steering instructions, with my stomach burning a hole in itself and my conscious preparing for the worst, we found a tunnel thru the massive rain shafts. I fire walled the engines and made a mad dash for the escape, out over Lake Victoria, and suddenly with out a sound…it was over.

The black wall rescinded into the distance. Anis began a nervous laugh. I followed suit a moment later. Our engineer remained white as a ghost in the back, his fingernails embedded in the seat cushion. Both Anis and I turned slowly and gave him each a stupid, mindless grin confirming that we were going to make it. He stared ahead obliviously, then slowly seemed to regain consciousness. I climbed the airplane back up to 6000 feet quickly and broadcast “Entebbe Approach, UN Kilo 1 would really, really, really like to land now for a beer.”

We gave helpful instructions to a C130 that had also planted itself close to the storm, and heard their excited replies with shouting in the background. They popped thru just as we did a moment later.

With the aircraft shut down in front of the AirServ hangar, our job done, I bummed the first cigarette from Anis that I have smoked in years, and just stared off towards the lake, refusing to look back at the horrific black cloud we had just visited.

ON THE GROUND, ENTEBBE