The Aviators
Some men live to fly, and Captain John Wilkinson was one of them. His wife Marie tells a story from early in their relationship when Johnny, as his friends knew him, was a young South African Air Force pilot learning to fly the Hercules cargo plane. ‘I love you,’ he told Marie, knowing that what he said next would hurt her, ‘but you have to remember that flying will always be my first love.’ Thirty years later they were still together, and had two daughters and a son, Hilton. Johnny was still flying the Hercules, but in Angola, in a war zone a long way from home.
On December 26, 1998, a Saturday, Johnny woke at first light. The sky over Luanda was pale and clear – ideal flying weather. He worked for Transafrik, an air charter company that flew heavy equipment to diamond mines and food and blankets to many of the casualties of Angola’s long civil war. Over the last month the fighting had been especially intense in and around Huambo, a highland city in the centre of the country. Later that morning Johnny would be flying there on a mission for the United Nations.
He showered quickly and put on his fawn one-piece flying overall. His cabin in the Transafrik camp was austere, but he had simple needs. On the shelf were his books, thrillers by Robert Ludlum and the RAF pilot-turned-novelist Gavin Lyall. On a table was the sewing machine that he used to make his own jeans from sheets of denim material. Beside the front door was a row of seedlings that he had carefully planted in Coke cans and food tins.
He was hungry and hurried to the mess. The decorations were still up from the Christmas party of the day before. It had been a rare day off for the pilots, who spent more time in the air in a typical three-month stretch than many commercial pilots did in a year. Johnny’s crew was already up and about. Carloa Melgar, a Bolivian, was the flight engineer. Benjamin Montefalcon, one of the numerous Filipinos who worked for Transafrik, was responsible for securing the load. An Angolan pilot, Carlos da Silva, was the first officer. They were happy to be flying with Johnny. He was an old-school pilot who flew with a calculator in his pocket and a cigarette in his mouth, and took notes on the back of his packets of Rembrandt van Rijn 30s. His experience had earned him the respect of his colleagues; his logbook showed 23,000 hours’ flying time in the Hercules, more than all but a few other cargo pilots in the world.
His affection for the ‘Herc’, a four-engine, bulbous-nosed, turboprop aircraft well suited to the short, bumpy airstrips of Angola, was often the source of amusement. After a day’s flying, dirty and sweaty from helping the loadmaster secure and unload the cargo, Johnny would remain on the airstrip to talk to the ground engineers about minor adjustments that could be made to the plane.
‘Johnny, you can’t make love to an aircraft,’ the other pilots would call out to him as they hurried back to camp to drink beer under the mango tree.
The company bus was ready to depart. When Johnny first came to live and work in Angola nearly eight years before, the journey to the 4 de Fevereiro airport took twenty-five minutes. But since then a third of Angola’s ten million people had been officially displaced, with many of them coming to Luanda to escape the fighting in the bush and the provinces. The Mercedes minivan moved slowly on the potholed roads that morning, and it took nearly an hour to arrive at the airport. Once there Johnny chatted to the UN ground staff about the route that he would be flying: south-east to Huambo, to pick up passengers, and then north-east to Saurimo, a garrison town. In the late afternoon he would return to Luanda. The first leg of flight UN806 was expected to be the most dangerous. Huambo was under attack from anti-government UNITA guerrillas, who had claimed the city as their capital. The only way in and out was by air.
Johnny had flown in other African war zones: Sudan, Rwanda, Mozambique and Somalia. He knew how to minimize risks. In Angola, the main danger to planes was from Stinger surface-to-air missiles that were used by UNITA to bring down government aircraft. To stay out of range of the missiles for as long as possible, pilots waited until they were directly above the safety of the airport before descending in a tight spiral.
With da Silva and Melgar performing the pre-flight checks, Johnny went to the cargo hold to ensure Montefalcon was satisfied that the load was secure. Then he settled into his seat on the left- hand side of the flight deck, placing his bags at his feet. Most pilots and crew members carried a single flight bag, usually holding the aircraft manual, various spare forms, condiments to improve the taste of pre-cooked meals and, perhaps, a porn mag or two for in-flight entertainment. Johnny carried a second flight bag containing his Jeppesen aeronautical charts, which showed the optimal approach and departure routes for most of the world’s airports.
He adjusted the seat height and rudder pedals so that he had the correct eye position, and put on his headset. After checking with the crew one last time, he eased back on the control column. The Herc climbed smoothly into the air. An hour later it landed at Huambo airport. The UN supplies were unloaded, and ten people attached to the peacekeeping mission came aboard: three Angolans, two Russian mechanics, an Australian lawyer, a Zambian policewoman, an Egyptian, a Cameroonian and a Namibian. Shortly before noon, the Herc twisted high into the sky above the airport, before levelling off and setting its course north-east. Johnny made radio contact with air traffic control in Luanda to say that he was headed to Saurimo.