For God’s sake! Now what?! The sight before me was nothing short of terrifying. A multi-colored, fiercely clad crowd surged toward me, armed with an imposing assortment of blades, clubs, and other menacing implements.
Only moments ago, the area had been eerily silent, devoid of any sign of life. Now, it was as if the earth itself was spitting people out in droves. They appeared from every direction, so numerous and frenzied that estimating their numbers was utterly impossible.
Probably well over 200 men, women, and children were storming towards me, the first few already reaching my small airplane and beginning to rock it. The sheer mass of people was overwhelming, and I was so stunned by the spectacle that the thought of taking a picture didn’t even cross my mind.
Instead, I fumbled out my cell phone with trembling hands and made a desperate call to Arnie, a local friend whose airstrip I was using at the time in Limuru, 20 miles north of Nairobi.
“Arnie,” I stammered, “You need to help me out here... fast.”
If anyone would know how to handle this, it was him, or so I hoped.
How had I managed to land myself in this pickle in the first place?
Naivasha, Kenya, June 2012
As is often the case with dramatic and potentially life-threatening events, this particular one began in an entirely mundane and uneventful manner.
I was scheduled to fly into Nairobi’s Wilson Airport for some routine maintenance on my trusty little Super Cub. It was, frankly, one of the more dreaded tasks of my life as a pilot in Kenya.
Typically, I would arrive with a perfectly functioning aircraft in pristine condition, only to depart with a pitiful contraption that seemed determined to shed parts mid-flight for the next 20 hours.
That’s not all.
Unbeknownst to most of the general public, a surprisingly high number of aviation accidents occur shortly after a plane has undergone a maintenance check. This unsettling trend is due to a variety of reasons, none of them reassuring. Chief among these are worker negligence, plain stupidity, envy, or the influence of a mysterious cocktail of "mind-enhancing" pharmaceutical stimulants.
In some cases, this unfortunate lack of attention to detail isn’t even accidental—it’s just the standard modus operandi of the workshop in question.
It’s worth pointing out that this phenomenon is not confined to any one country. However, I must admit that, statistically speaking, such mishaps do seem to occur more frequently in third-world destinations.
I can’t even begin to count how often, after a trip to the workshop, my plane had quite literally started falling apart.
There was the time the brakes hadn’t been reattached to my left wheel, leaving me to perform an impromptu show for everyone around as I spun in perfect 360-degree circles on the tarmac.
Then there was the radio—removed and reinstalled without the minor detail of reconnecting it to the antenna, effectively rendering me a flying mime, rendering me incommunicado. And who could forget the truly nerve-wracking incident when a witless mechanic had neglected to tighten the screws on the cowling (that’s the hood of the engine compartment of an airplane, in case you’re wondering). My wife nearly jumped out of her skin when two screws came loose mid-air, smacking into the windshield just as we lifted off on our takeoff roll.
But that’s a story for another day...
Anyway, it was a bright and beautiful day at my little airstrip nestled high in the mountains of Limuru. My plane was tucked safely inside a makeshift hangar, surrounded by endless lush green tea plantations. The setting was stunning—a grass strip that was thrilling to take off from and, at times, utterly terrifying to land on.
Runways, as a rule, tend to be straight. This simplicity ensures that all a pilot has to do is point their flying machine in a uniform direction for takeoff or landing. After all, airplanes aren’t built like race cars, and they’re woefully unprepared for navigating tight bends.
But not this airstrip. No, mine was the aviation equivalent of the Nürburgring—a twisting, crooked stretch of grass perched at 8,000 feet above sea level. Add to that a smorgasbord of local wildlife and livestock that seemed to think the runway was their private grazing field, and you had a real recipe for adventure.
More times than I cared to count, I found myself buzzing mere feet over a flock of sheep, a herd of cows, or the occasional goat herder lazily sunbathing in the middle of the runway just to clear the path. Naturally, you get used to these little peculiarities. Eventually.
However, even though the day had begun on a bright and pleasant note, the weather forecast for the afternoon was less than reassuring—predicting heavy storms and hail by 4 p.m.
With this in mind, I had taken off at dawn, landing in Nairobi well before the first mechanics bothered to clock in. Using the impending weather as leverage, I made my intentions crystal clear to the chief mechanic: I wanted to be out of the workshop by noon and back in the air to beat the storm home.
"No worries, Bwana," the chief assured me with a confidence I immediately wanted to believe. "All will be done on time."
Feeling cautiously optimistic, I decided to take a cab into downtown Nairobi to run a few errands and tick some shopping off my list.
This, regrettably, turned out to be my first mistake of the day.
When I returned at noon, I was met with an unsettling sight: the place was eerily deserted. It seemed everyone had vanished for an extended lunch break, while my poor, neglected plane sat there, on one wheel only, surrounded by a scattered assortment of parts still strewn across the cold hangar floor. I stood there for a moment, the weight of the situation sinking in, and for a brief second, I almost burst into tears.
A quick glance up at the sky left me, to put it mildly, rather alarmed. The first dark cumulus nimbus clouds were beginning to form on the horizon, and as if that weren’t bad enough, dark clouds were also gathering over my intended destination.
In my naïve attempt to convince the mechanics of the urgency to stick to a tight time schedule for today’s maintenance, I had clearly failed. I learned a valuable lesson that day: never leave the workers unsupervised if you actually intend to get out of that place.
Knowing that resorting to expletives wouldn’t help anyone, I tried to muster as much patience as possible, sat down, and gave in to my fate, waiting.
Around three o’clock, the first mechanics shuffled in and lazily began finishing up their work on my plane. It was at that moment I gained another insight: there was no point in hurrying them. Throwing a tantrum, like I’d seen other customers do, was not my style, and I knew it wouldn’t achieve anything. I could yell at a cow about why she wouldn’t produce honey, and the result would be the same.
So, I said nothing and waited.
And waited some more until finally, around 4:30 p.m., the plane was declared ready. I hastily conducted a brief visual inspection, verifying that the brakes were where they should be and functional, that there was indeed oil in the engine, and that the radio was properly connected. My well-laid plan to refuel—since I had barely 2.5 hours of flying endurance left in the tanks—had to be scrapped. The clouds now loomed menacingly, and I figured Limuru was only a short 20-minute hop away.
This, to my regret, was my second mistake of the day.
I jumped into the cockpit, cheerfully waved goodbye, and, in a fit of spiteful imagination, prayed that the chief mechanic might suffer a bolt of lightning while seated on the lavatory grappling with a severe bout of diarrhoea. Then, without further ado, I taxied to runway 14 at Nairobi Wilson Airport.
When I contacted the tower, they politely inquired whether my mental faculties were intact, pointing out that I was preparing to take off directly into the jaws of an advancing thunderstorm.
"No worries," I confidently replied. "I know what I’m doing."
This, as you might expect, was my third mistake of the day.
The rain began just as I rolled down the runway, and with a low, steep turn, I aimed for the Limuru hills. My low altitude was a necessity, given the ominously low cloud ceiling, which I had decided to dismiss as trivial at the time of takeoff.
Behind me, the dark clouds surged forward, swiftly closing off any hope of retreat to the safety of Nairobi’s airport. Well, only losers back off, right? That was the mantra keeping me airborne—for now.
Barely 10 minutes later, I was shaking like a Volkswagen bus packed with hippies on a rutted dirt road. Hailstones began pelting my tiny Super Cub, rattling against the wings and fuselage like a shower of frozen marbles. My home airstrip, just 10 minutes away, was now utterly inaccessible. A massive storm cloud had enveloped the Limuru hills, rendering my runway as invisible as those aforementioned mechanics vanishing for lunch.
I glanced nervously at my fuel gauge. Two hours of endurance left in the tanks. On the ground, that might seem like a lot—ample time to find a petrol station or call for roadside assistance. But in the air, it’s a very different game entirely. This was the first time I truly grasped that unnerving reality.
I decided to circle for 30 minutes, hoping the clouds would shift enough to allow me to slip through and land. But they didn’t. And so, I couldn’t.
This was my fourth mistake of the day.
With an hour and 30 minutes of fuel remaining, the harsh reality began to sink in—there was nowhere for me to go. To compound my distress, I realised how unfamiliar I was with the geography of these parts. Having logged fewer than 50 flight hours in Kenya, I felt like an interloper in an unknown sky.
In my growing panic, I remembered an old aviation map I had stashed somewhere. Likely under the seat. I made a mental note to be better prepared for emergencies in the future. As calmly as I could, I reached under the seat, fumbling around until my fingers brushed the crumpled chart. I yanked it out and spread it across my lap, my eyes darting between its faded details and the ominous weather outside.
The map was woefully outdated—printed shortly after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe—but this wasn’t the time to obsess over accuracy. After all, mountains and rivers don’t relocate much over the decades. Hailstones continued their relentless assault, hammering the wings and windshield, making it challenging to concentrate.
Then I saw it—a faint airport symbol near the village of Naivasha. Relief coursed through me. The ancient chart might just have redeemed itself.
With a dwindling hour and 20 minutes of fuel left and even less time before the sun dipped below the horizon, I resolved to take the gamble. Naivasha’s airport seemed like a refuge, a potential sanctuary from the storm. Maybe it even had a burger joint.
This decision, however, turned out to be my fifth mistake of the day - and nearly my last. The issue wasn’t the burger. It was the airport.
It took about 30 minutes to reach Naivasha, a town I had only ever visited by car, never by air. Despite my limited familiarity, the runway was surprisingly easy to spot from above. Oddly, though, the airstrip looked lifeless. No planes graced the crumbling apron, no terminal or workshops signaled activity, and the place seemed eerily abandoned. Even the radio frequency was devoid of chatter - a bizarre anomaly in Africa, where pilots rarely take a breath between transmissions. This lack of noise, which I usually found annoying, now unsettled me.
To make things stranger, the promised burger joint was nowhere in sight - neither, for that matter, was an air traffic control tower.
Still, I needed to land. I had to make a phone call and figure out my next steps. As I lined up for the approach, everything seemed manageable until short final - when I was barely 100 feet above the ground. That’s when I noticed the runway wasn’t just poorly maintained; it was a war zone of craters, cracks, and potholes. Landing here was what I imagined landing on Beirut’s streets during the 1980s must have felt like.
With teeth gritted, I brought the Super Cub down, narrowly avoiding the worst of the pits and trenches. I taxied to a patch of tarmac that might have once been the apron - or perhaps just wishful thinking. No one appeared to greet me or demand a landing fee. The place seemed safe enough, but there wasn’t a soul around, and it definitely didn’t look like somewhere I’d want to spend the night.
I killed the engine, grabbed my phone, and called Arnie.
This, of course, turned out to be my sixth mistake of the day.
“Where did you say you are???” Arnie’s voice crackled over the line, his tone already drenched in concern.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I think it’s the Naivasha airport.”
“What? Naivasha doesn’t have an airport!”
“Don’t be silly, Arnie. I’m on it right now. But there’s a slight issue… a couple hundred people seem to be charging toward me. They don’t look particularly welcoming. Got any advice?”
“Marcel,” Arnie said, now alarmed. “If you don’t start your engine right this second and get out of there, neither you nor your plane will ever be seen again. You’ve landed in the middle of a ghetto. Those people will strip everything you own - and quite possibly kill you for good measure!”
By this point, I was trembling like a dairymaid at her first barn dance.
There was no time to dilly-dally. I praised the Lord as my hand darted to the ignition and cranked the engine. To my immense relief, it sputtered to life on the first attempt. Blessings upon blessings, at least this wasn’t my fickle Land Rover.
As the propeller began to spin, the Super Cub crept forward, the advancing blade an ominous warning to the surging crowd. They hesitated, then scattered, likely deciding that charging at a moving plane wasn’t worth the risk of decapitation.
I kept the line open with Arnie as I taxied through the thinning mob. The chaos swirled around me, my sole focus on keeping the plane moving and praying that no one got too close to the propeller - a disaster I couldn’t even bear to contemplate.
“Arnie,” I rasped, my voice thin with panic, “I can’t get back to Limuru. It’s getting dark, I’m running out of fuel, and I’m starving!”
“Stop whining, Marcel,” Arnie snapped. “Complaining is not a sound strategy. Here’s what you’re going to do. Get airborne. Head north until you see a golf course - you can’t miss it. From there, change course slightly and fly straight for 20 to 30 minutes. Stay low because you’ll need to spot a big tree. That’s next to a grass runway belonging to Congreve. There’s a lodge nearby, Mbweha Camp. You should be able to shelter the plane there. They might even have food.”
“Got it,” I muttered, barely processing his words.
“Now, stop loitering and get going!” Arnie barked. “Good luck - you’ll need it. It’s going to be dark soon…”
A quick mental calculation confirmed my worst suspicion: reaching this elusive lodge was going to be painfully close. But what choice did I have? Returning to Naivasha’s airstrip - if one could even call it that - was out of the question unless I wanted to join the local ghetto’s charity donation program: One Plane, Slightly Used, Free of Charge.
The crowd was still chasing after me, shouting words I didn’t understand but could accurately interpret as unfriendly. With no time to line up with the runway, I slammed the throttle forward and took off straight from the apron into the stormy, uncertain skies.
Well, come to think of it, "apron" is a bit lavish - it was actually more like an active Mogadishu mine field.
I climbed to a modest 300 feet, staying low to dodge the darkening clouds and rain that continued to mock me. Flying in a straight line, I dialed in the course Arnie had recommended: 360 degrees. Surely, nothing could go wrong from here.
Ten minutes later, a golf course materialised below me. “Another 30 minutes from here. Look for a tree,” Arnie had said. A tree. In Africa...
It was twilight now, that brief equatorial moment when day gives up on itself with a sigh and plunges headfirst into pitch-black night. My nerves were fraying, my palms slick with sweat as I fumbled around the cockpit for my flashlight. Not that it would help much, but somehow, clutching it like a lucky charm made me feel slightly less doomed.
Twenty agonising minutes dragged on until suddenly, there it was. A giant tree emerged from the gloom. Next to it, a thin, enticing strip of grass…
With no time for second-guessing, I descended for a closer look.
I had learned the hard way that in Africa, a fly-by to check the airstrip for unexpected inhabitants was absolutely mandatory. The grass runway often turned into a cozy gathering spot for animals at night - safety in numbers and a better view of the surroundings...
I did sympathise with their reasoning, but I prayed - yet again, as I was slowly running out of prayers - that tonight, of all nights, they’d chosen somewhere other than the airstrip for their congregating.
Opening the side window, I leaned out with my flashlight while simultaneously squeezing the control stick between my knees. Multitasking at its finest, though I could have used an extra hand - or two. The weak beam illuminated just enough of the ground to convince me I wasn’t about to land in a crater or on a family of elephants.
I touched down just as the last shred of sunlight gave up the ghost. The moment my tires brushed the grass, darkness consumed everything. I taxied blindly, my breath shallow, my heart pounding.
Then, as I killed the engine and climbed out, a figure emerged from the shadows. Startled, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Boss, what are you doing here in the dark?”
The man, an askari with a spear in hand, eyed me curiously. His stealth skills were unnervingly impressive.
“Good question,” I replied, though my voice lacked its usual swagger. “Is there a safari camp nearby?”
“Yes, Boss,” he said with unnerving calm. “But first, we must push your plane off the grass strip. We’ll park it next to the other one.”
“Another one?” I asked.
He didn’t elaborate, but soon enough, I saw it: a scruffy yellow Super Cub huddled under a shabby shelter. Not quite as dashing as mine, of course, but at least my trusty plane wouldn’t be lonely tonight.
With the plane secured, the askari led me to the camp, where at long last, my petitions for sustenance were answered - dinner and a show, or rather: a burger and a drink. The burger was good. The drink - Amarula, I think - was better.
Exhausted but alive, I collapsed into a chair, my day of near-catastrophes finally over.
As I nursed the drink, one thought lingered: Had I learned anything from today’s misadventures?
Probably not. But I did resolve to get a new aviation map of Kenya - preferably something from the 1990s or, perhaps, even this century.
I’d rather not test my guardian angel's patience again anytime soon...
Marcel Romdane
Below:
When it gets dark in Africa... My home strip in Limuru, Kenya, Striking but scary at times....
