Caught in a Sandstorm
- Feb 26
- 4 min read
Treasures From The Pioneer Era, reported by Ernie Tanner:
The helicopter flight from Switzerland to Tanzania in 1989 had special significance for me. My youngest son had completed his training as a helicopter pilot in the USA and accompanied me now as a junior pilot. This gave me the opportunity to share with him many valuable experiences of flying helicopters. However, this opportunity also offered us far more than we had asked for. The flight over Italy, Corfu, Crete, Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor and Aswan along the Nile went smoothly and made a great impression on us both. My son proved to be an excellent pilot and mastered every task perfectly. He was of great help and assistance to me. Up to then the weather had been kind to us.
During the flight across the endless Sudanese desert a strong side wind arose from the west, rolling an orange colored cloud bank towards us at alarming speed.
I took over the controls and from a high altitude dived steeply in order not to lose contact with the ground in the approaching sandstorm. The sandstorm rapidly caught up with us although I had turned towards the east. We went frantically through our options. A sandstorm is a disaster not only for people but also for our poor machine. The fine sand invades every crack, chokes the filters and damages all the parts. “Just don’t land and sit there! Get out of this sand!” was our watchword.
It was very difficult to distinguish the dense, whirling wall of sand from the solid ground. We were in a bubbling, yellowish orange cauldron. We stretched our eyes for a glimpse of the Nile, which should have been east of us.
What a relief! Suddenly, there it was at our feet, the cloudy yellowish brown flowing streams were almost as yellow as the sandy fog surrounding us. It was a poor way of getting our bearings. I flew just some feet (few meters) above the water and it took an enormous effort to keep minimum distance by orienting myself on the scanty growth along the shoreline. The Nile twisted and turned incessantly, split and converged again and again. In order to maintain sight contact, I was obliged to follow every single meander and didn’t dare take any short cuts. Visibility stayed terrible, and the heavy storm blew relentlessly from the right.
Although the orientation problem was solved to some extent, there was inevitably a new one. The storm had blown us far off course and the many meanders of the river we were forced to follow were gobbling up our fuel. It was hard to make out our exact position. The river looked the same everywhere and all we could see were bushes and trees along the river bank. Visibility was still very poor. Probably the windshield was also thick with sand. It took all my flying skills to maneuver the rotor blades past the trees and shrubs. What should we do? Land and think of a plan? No, keep flying and pray! “Heavenly Father, you know where we are. Please show us the right way!”
We were maybe 30 miles (50 km) from Khartoum when we ran out of fuel. With a heavy and anxious heart, I decided to land. I had no authorization to land outside of an airport. What awaited us?
I picked out an open space behind the bushes on the river bank and we landed smoothly. It was a good feeling to have firm ground under our feet. At moments like these I truly fail to understand how people can rave about flying! It feels so much better to have your feet on solid ground!
Throughout all the time we had been flying so low and so close to the water we had had no radio contact, so I had been unable to inform the air traffic control about our situation. For this reason, I urgently needed to get to Khartoum as fast as possible to report there.
I spied a pickup truck on a nearby dirt track and tried to persuade the driver to take me to Khartoum, but he was unwilling.
Just before dusk, a military patrol with several aircraft came along, obviously having been informed about the low-flying helicopter. We were questioned in a friendly but thorough manner. Then it was arranged that the officer in charge would fly to the airport with me the next day to check out my story.
To our surprise, the soldiers produced two camp beds on which we fell asleep, exhausted, with no need for any lullaby.
Suddenly we were aroused violently from our deep sleep by a bellowing male voice. Bright headlights dazzled our sleepy eyes. “What are you doing here? Where have you come from?” It was a different military patrol who knew nothing about us and were overzealous in performing their professional duties.
It took every bit of eloquence I could summon to convince the officer of our innocence. At last I succeeded and the troop clattered off into the dark night in their motor vehicles. This time it took me longer to fall asleep.
In the morning, our first officer appeared with a truck and a few jerry cans. We refueled the helicopter and took off towards Khartoum. As the cabin was completely filled by the reserve tank, the only room available for the officer was the co-pilot’s seat so I had to put my son into the care of the military. They drove him to the airport where he searched high and low for me. This was extremely exciting for the seventeen-year-old, who was breathing African air for the first time, all alone and abandoned looking for his father, not knowing whether I had even been locked up. The soldiers helped him, taking him from office to office where they thought I might be undergoing interrogation. Later on, he admitted how worried he had been the whole time. And how wonderful it was when we were finally reunited!
After this exciting event, our flight took us on to Ethiopia and Kenya, and finally to Mwanza in Tanzania.
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