so far I was proud that my logbook looked perfectly clean. No accident, not even incident. OK there have been some bruises here and there due to bad surfaced airstrips, Flying Medical Service has a knack for awful strips in the Tanzanian bush. But never did I veered off an airstrip.
We were coming for landing at Olorbelin, an short airstrip near volcano Shombole on the Kenyan border, northern lake Natron. The wind was strong from the side so I took over from our trainee pilot, landed a bit hard and I lost brakes right away! I quickly told my copilot to hit the brakes on her side but she had no brakes either and we veered of the airstrip in a flash.
Scary moment I’m telling you. The area is littered with rocks and little trees or logs. The plane started to bounce violently a coupla times, we hit a tree, dust was flying off, and still no braking no sign of stopping…all I was thinking was to keep the nose up to avoid damage on the propeller and in turn on the engine, and trying to keep direction but without much effect.
Finally we stopped, took a big piece of breath, checked on everybody on board, a bit shaken and half smiling in disbelief. We stepped down and started to look for damages. Some metal bruises here and there on top of the burst tyre. The Masai people who had enjoyed the show, waiting for us under the clinic trees, were running towards us.
That big rock (middle of the picture) initially stuck in the soil was thrown out on a few meters by the left wheel! A 30 cm round rock that burst the tyre which finally helped us to stop. The light colored patch on the right side is the airstrip.
A tree we clipped with the left wing. I admit I didn’t enjoy the sighting of that tree coming fast towards us… Wine bottle size trunk.
That’s a lying big piece of log that the plane jumped over! Notice the wheel tracks.
my phone to compare sizes.
Some of the many various rocks with met on our way out of the airstrip.
on small plane, it is totally doable to put it on jack and remove a wheel to fix a puncture.
I had had some faint hope for fixing the puncture when getting out of the plane…well the sight of this split tube ruined it all.
and anyway that kind of ripped off holes on the tyre wouldn’t do any good to the tube.
More tomorrow…
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