April 4 2008
I am doing a 30 day contract for a South African aviation company piloting a Beechcraft 1900 based in Kinshasa (the capital of the DRC) flying for the United Nations.Life in Kinshasa is different in many ways from life in Pretoria. The first thing you notice is the cost of things. The other day I was desperate for a bit of 1st world food, so I trekked to the local KFC clone called CFC (Congo Fried Chicken). It actually wasn’t too bad, but a 3 piece lunch box was priced at 9.50 USD. And of course the teller says “the change is finished” so it really costs 10.00USD (100 Rand). Chicken is expensive because transport is expensive, and transport is expensive because fuel is expensive, and fuel is expensive because the people delivering the fuel eat chicken.
The company I work for has done well with the accommodation here in Kinshasa. We live in a big apartment building and usually 2 guys to an apartment. We can’t even smell the normal Kinshasa sewage smell. The company also has signed us up for the local gym. This is a good thing as there often is no other way of exercising.
One bad thing about the company I work for is the lack of proper maintenance for the aircraft. On this tour we have a very good engineer which makes thing much better, but he is not a magician. What we need is an engineer wearing a long white robe and carrying a wand. Beechcraft and the South African CAA get together and make a list of thing you cannot fly without. (Fire extinguishers, radios, engines, wings..etc…) We call these MEL (Minimum Equipment List) items. My previous tour was in Khartoum and that airplane had 7 failed MEL items. Each item forbids flight till repaired. Grounded. However… The company says “You don’t have to fly this plane, BUT… if you don’t fly, we really have no use for you, or your skills do we?” So I end up flying unsafe planes on a regular basis.
This lack of safe maintenance is actually caused by the client. (In this case the UN) The UN always accepts the lowest bid by competing contractors. So our boss’s bid either gets undercut by the Russians, and he goes out of business, or he lies and tells the client he can maintain a plane with a certain amount of money, when he knows it is impossible. He lies to the client and tells him he will keep on hand a list of certain essential spare parts, but he knows he cannot afford to with the money they are paying. He promises to have one licensed engineer with each aircraft. But he knows he cannot afford to do that. (In Khartoum at one time we had 11 aircraft and not one (Zero, None) licensed engineer.) (I should mention that during this time the boss did manage to buy himself a Ferrari.) So the boss gives his word to the client that he will do something, but in reality he has no intention of keeping his word. He also signs a contract with no intention of honoring it. To be a boss in aviation you must be a liar and a dishonest person. Dishonesty in business is called fraud. Almost every aviation company I have worked for in Africa was owned by a dishonest fraudster. They call themselves “Businessmen”, but they are just crooks. If all aviation bosses were jailed the worlds average morality would raise significantly.
All the mosquitoes here are the Malaria carrying type. They are large and stealthy silent. When they land on you, you feel nothing unless they accidentally touch a hair. They start drilling a split second after landing. I brought my own mosquito net with from Pretoria. One of the UN planes here is grounded because of the crew having malaria.
The UN is one of the worst run organizations in the world. If my taxes went to the UN, I would be angry. They seem to be run by incompetent people, who must hire other incompetent people or else some competent person will take their job. So the average competency of the UN is steadily decreasing. This is a situation not unique to the UN. The governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa are similar. I have made it my personal quest to not encourage incompetence. So I often butt heads with these people. The UN here is the only aviation place on earth that uses local time in aviation. All the rest of the world uses UTC so all times are standard. As we have multiple time zones in the country, we have to know the time zones of all the small airports we fly to, because the take off times they give us are in local time. Duh. …
As an example of UN screw-ups let me tell you about a flight 2 days ago…..
Twenty four hours before a flight the Captain has to sign the DFS (Daily Flight Schedule). This paper tells him final number of passengers, routing, times, and cargo, so he can put in the correct amount of fuel and do the flight planning. So I sign this paper telling me 10 passengers for tomorrow to Kisangani. I put in fuel for 12 passengers just in case of a screw-up. Then later they bring me another DFS saying 9 passengers. I sign it. Next morning early they bring me one saying 15 passengers. I refuse it as I’ve fueled for maximum of 12 as per the UN order. They then get upset and ask me if I would PLEASE..PLEASE .. Just this once carry 15 with the fuel I have. I ask them if they will sign a paper saying they are requesting me to fly illegal and unsafe. They refuse to sign. They want me to accept the responsibility for the illegal unsafe flight. I tell hem to piss off. What I call unsafe they call UNsafe. Then they bring me another DFS saying 11 passengers, but this one is dated before the last one I had signed. So I am supposed to acknowledge an order I didn’t receive before another one that I did.
They then come out with another DFS saying it is now a scheduled night stop in Kananga. So I send my copilot home to get us some spare clothes and night stop kit. We always carry an emergency night stop kit, but that one is just bare basics. He gets back an hour later, and I am waiting for the UN to yell at us because the flight is now late, but they didn’t seem to notice. Finally 2 hours later twelve (No DFS ever said 12) passengers show up. We load all the passengers, their baggage, and their guns on board (4 pistols and 2 AK 47s), and take off.
On landing at Kanaga, they park us in a funny spot next to a band and dancing girls. It turns out one of our passenger is a senior government minister. The UN had forgotten to mention the VIP status. After 30 minutes, and much noise and pomp, the band quits, and the dancing girls go home. We can now refuel, secure the plane and go to the accommodation provided in beautiful Kananga. We are scheduled to take the minister back to Kinshasa tomorrow afternoon. My co-pilot has a UN driver’s license so we drive ourselves to the guest house. There are lots of pot holes and a zillion small goats. The goats here are very boxy things. They are shaped like a shoe box with legs and a head.
Next day we arrive at the airport 1 hour earlier than normal to do all the pre-flight and paperwork. During the pre-flight I notice that the right engine won’t get any fuel. That fuel valve has been giving trouble for over 2 months now. It is an MEL item. We are not supposed to fly with out it being operational. The engineer ordered it months ago, but the company says it costs too much to fix. We have been flying for 2 months with this faulty fuel valve. If it had closed in flight instead of on the ground, the engine would have stopped. Now we are stranded in Kananga. So I call the engineer in Kinshasa. He says to open the upper wing panels, and try to manually open the valve. So with all the UN staff watching, we climb up on the wing and open up the panels and try to pry the valve open with a leatherman. Fortunately my copilot is strong with small hands. He opens the valve. But as soon as the battery switch is turned on the valve closes again. We pry it open again, and I pull the circuit breaker out and now the valve stays open. I am worried about accidentally hitting the circuit breaker with my knee in flight as this would close the valve and stop the engine. So I wrap a bunch of wire around it to stop it from being able to go in.
We close the wing panel and wash up. Just in time because the band starts playing and the girls start dancing. Here comes the minister.
All the UN guys are there to help him on the plane, (There were 17 UN staff present) and the press is taking a zillion pictures. Just as he is about to climb on board, he looks over at a Boeing 727 parked nearby that was also loading passengers. He decides he would rather go in the bigger plane, so he walks over with his bodyguards and secretaries, and aids, and just gets on, telling the crew to take him to Kinshasa. All the UN guys are running around in circles like headless chickens. I don’t know where the 727 was originally going, but it is now going to drop off the minister in Kinshasa on the way. We watch the 727 take off. Then I ask the UN if we have any passengers for Kinshasa. We delay while they try to find anyone wanting to go to Kinshasa. So finally we leave an hour later with 3 passengers. The DFS says 15 passengers with one a VIP. We land in Kinshasa and the band and dancing girls meet the plane. Soon they realize there is no VIP and they all go home.
Our engineer has told the UN that the plane is grounded till we get the right valve.
So today is a day off for me. I think I’ll go to the gym.
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