Seemingly just another day at the airport..

It’s been a while since the last update. Well, no news is good news. Pretty much the same things go on here at the airfield. Yesterday the SPLA celebrated the anniversary of their “revolution”. This was accompanied by a parade. Especially for the occasion they rolled out some of their tanks. At first I thought they were laying a smoke screen but it turned out it was just the smoke coming from their exhaust. At the John Garang memorial the usual speeches were held which continued for 4 hours. In the evening we expected the local armed parties to fire celebrating rounds, hopefully into the air. But the festivities proceeded without any incidents.

(Dr. John Garangs' Memorial in Juba. Garang was founder and leader of the SPLA and killed in a helicopter crash July 2005)

At the airport it’s reasonably quiet. Mainly because most of our air assets are grounded due to technical problems. If all goes well the Russians will fly in their Mi-8s this weekend. That should give us some slack.

Tomorrow 5 Dutch colleagues will finally be arriving in Juba. Three of them are staying here and two of them will move on to Maridi next week. Maridi is a Team Site about 250 Km West of Juba. They should be able to reach it by road. This will take about a day.

Well this ends the part I wrote in the morning. What seemed to be just another day at the airport took a ghastly twist at the end of the day.

At about 15:45 I was standing on the apron talking to our Learjet crew who had just come in to drop off the Force Commander. We heard a bang in the distance. That’s not so unusual as the de-mining guys blow up what they find every once in a while. But somehow this time it sounded different. Not long there after there was a second explosion and rumbling. In the distance we could see a smoke plume rise to the sky. More explosions followed by the characteristic whistle of artillery shells or projectiles whizzing overhead. Our suspicions were dead on…..the SAF ammunition dump at the edge of town had blown up. Instantly killing 2 soldiers and spraying ordnance over a wide area. Even as far as the airfield 5 km away where it claimed another victim. A 105mm artillery shell landed in the middle of the Russian Aviation Unit compound. Luckily it didn’t explode but the energy of the impact was enough to rip the left foot off of one of the Russian troops that was standing nearby. He was rushed off to hospital and seems to be doing OK. Tomorrow they will remove the projectile - which is lodged 2 meters deep in the ground - from the compound.

Both SAF and SPLA had mobilized their troops in no time. AK-47 and RPG armed soldiers popped up from every corner. The situation was rather tense for a while because there have been some minor incidents between SAF and SPLA in Juba recently. Fortunately the situation didn’t escalate further than the expected panic. People - recognizing the sounds of war - instinctively running and ducking for cover.

(Impressive smoke plume even from 3 miles away)

At about 16:45 the explosions died down and the situation slowly turned back to normal.

There are some rumors going around that the "accidental" explosion was staged. SAF wanted to get rid of some munitions that they didn't want to transport back North but didn't want to leave behind either. Blowing it up would solve the problem because nobody would be able to verify the amount and types of munitions that were stored.

Just another day at the airport...

Well sort of. We had a serious CB(Cumulonimbus: big cloud, poor visibility, lots of rain, thunder and lightning) hanging over the airfield this morning. At about 10 the weather slightly cleared. Cloudbase was around 750-1000 feet visibility less than 3km. Several aircraft managed to make a VOR to visual approach and landed uneventful. A Boeing 707 cargo flight passed overhead and descended to make a visual pattern at around 750 feet altitude. Turned out the pattern was a bit too close to the airfield and the pilot wasn't able to roll out on a steady final but overshot the centerline. Instead of breaking off and going around he attempted to correct the situation. He touched down on the runway but only managed to stabilise the aircraft when he was already halfway down. With only 1200 meters of slippery and wet runway left, all the reverse thrust and braking couldn't prevent the 707 from skidding off the end. Miraculously the plane came to a standstil after about 200 meters without as much as a scratch leaving just the captain with a big dent in his ego and a hole in his pension scheme. Things could have turned out much worse considering the payload...50 tons of Jet A1 fuel.



Now all they need to do is drag the plane out of the mud before it sinks much deeper. Wonder how they're going to do that without the help of any cranes. Maybe it will just be converted into barracks just like the other 707 sitting on the "old" runway.