The Day I ran off the Runway at Tshofa

Kimp'Efile 'The Gift of God' Cessna Stationair 206

I had been flying all the previous day and was very tired. My wife urged me to stay home and relax. But there were passengers waiting for me and I was scheduled to pick up the Church leader Ya Lubange, the chief Nurse, and the Schools Inspector at Lubao at 10am next morning. It was a 47minute flight from Kipushya to the North East.

We landed at Lubao on time. The passengers were waiting for us. This was when I realised that I would have to land at Tshofa down over the mission and onto a new rough strip. The wind was blowing strongly from the south east which would prohibit a landing with the wind.

We arrived at Tshofa and found a DC3 parked at the end of the bush strip. Apparently it had past over the Tshofa landing strip before heading into a severe thunderstorm. The rain was so heavy one engine failed, so they turned back and landed at Tshofa on one engine. They parked there until they could get a mechanic to look at their crippled aeroplane.

I flew over the runway to assess whether I could land over the DC3 onto the strip. It seemed to be fine so we went in for the landing. Over the DC3 I cut the motor to glide in when we hit the first of three huge undulations. The C206 bounced a little as we went on down. The second undulation threw us up into the air. Now things were getting dangerous. What should I do?

There was still one more undulation to come so I put on full power. Then we had a full power stall and the plane cracked to the left quickly. We were soon in the long grass which was actually much better than being on the runway. Pastor Lubange prayed loudly in His prayer language.  I cut the engine and we came to a halt just a few metres from a deep erosion gully. We were all glad to be safe on the ground.

I prayed a prayer of thanks to the Lord for His protection.

 We climbed out to look at the damage. There a 20cm crack in the pod carrying the baggage and grass in the engine, otherwise we were intact. How I praised God for sparing our lives.

The local Military arrived all agitated. They had seen us come in to land then we disappeared.

They had their rifles at the ready. They soon calmed down and left us to unload the plane and then push it back onto the runway in front of the DC3. I called Esther and told her what happened. She contact Ed Psalm the Corn project Pilot who came the next day to escort me to Kipushya Mission.

Most accidents happen because of pilot error. It was a good lesson for me not to attempt difficult landings when I am tired.