Dark Ridges

6:15pm, 30 miles south east of Kisumu, Kenya.
“Can you confirm you are able to proceed visually?” the tower controller asked. I guessed he was concerned about two things.
1. In Kenya all night flight requires me to follow instrument flight rules (for good reason). The sun would set in about 20 minutes, night officially starts 15 minutes after that, and my flight to Nairobi takes about an hour and four minutes.
2. The tower closed officially at 6pm. I am guessing the controller was eager to get home before the countrywide curfew (enacted because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

I fixated on two problems:
1. The dark rain clouds immediately in front of me. AND
2. The patient and physicians behind me. They let me know about an hour ago that the patient needed to stay at the lowest altitude possible, even though she was on oxygen.

Kenya boasts an amazing diversity of landscapes, including impressive mountains. And like the rest of the world, an explosive growth of cell phone towers. I did not want to be “playing” around those things by dodging rain showers as daylight quickly faded to blackness.

I pulled back, powered up, and began climbing to 9000 feet. I prayed that Nairobi center would be able to hear me at that altitude and clear me to stay under Instrument Flight Rules. The altimeter began winding up: 8,000, 8,500…

“Captain! You have to go down!” the physician’s voice cut through the engine noise. I noticed alarms were going off in the back of the airplane. The alarms were from her medical equipment monitoring the patient’s vital signs.

I immediately leveled off and pointed the nose back down.

“Alright, we are going around this rain,” I told myself. I lowered the left wing and began turning away from the rain and towards the dark outline of some hills.

I had planned a route on my iPad that I determined would keep us safe at 7,500 feet. If the weather cooperated.

That’s when I noticed smoke coming up from the cooling vent above the instrument panel. I grabbed both avionics master switches and toggled them to off.

Now the dark world outside eerily matched the darkness in the middle of the instrument panel, and the silence of the missing radio noise.

Priorities:
1. Fly the plane away from the rain and away from any terrain.
2. Keep heading along my route to get to Nairobi.
3. Let AIM AIR know what happened.

Unfortunately, when I switched off the avionics, it also turned off our satellite tracking system. I set up my iPad to help me navigate, then pulled out my cell phone. I had one bar of service. I sent a WhatsApp message to another pilot in Uganda who was flight following for me:

“I had to shutoff Avionics 2. I was getting a trace of smoke out of fan vent. Can you call Wilson tower and let them know my ETA. I am at FL 075 for the patient so staying VFR”

He acknowledged my message immediately. Thank you, God. I guess cell towers aren’t all bad!

Once I was clear of the rain, I turned back on course, and I flicked on one of the Avionics switches, and looked for smoke and felt for anything getting hot. Everything seemed normal. I breathed a sigh of relief. Now I had my large GPS display up, and I selected the terrain page. Using the terrain page, I could fly over the dark shape of these ridges with more information of what terrain was around me. I also had our satellite tracker back up, and was able to turn on the radio altimeter. I set it to go off if it detected anything less than 2000 feet below us.

To my right sat Fred, one of our line service men, who had worked with me in Lokichogio. He officially retired last year, but asked to continue for an extra year on a contract basis. I asked him to keep an eye out for towers on his side of the cockpit. Most of them have lights on them, but that doesn’t mean one or two could be powered off.

I got through to Nairobi center on the radio. They asked me if I could stay at 7,500 and maintain terrain separation. I confirmed I could. They approved me to continue, and to report when I reached the control zone.

As we flew east towards home, under a darkening sky, things began to look familiar. We passed over the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley, then south of Mount Suswa, a dormant volcano. Soon we passed over the eastern escarpment of the valley, with the city lights of Nairobi in front, and the black void of the game park and the Ngong hills to our right. They would be towering over us at this altitude.

I switched over to Wilson Airport’s tower frequency, and they told me to continue. I noticed the city lights began to disappear in front of me. More rain. Fortunately, just a slight diversion toward the Ngong hills was all I needed to get past. I looked at the GPS, making sure the waypoint for a large antenna farm was still to our right, in order to avoid some significantly tall radio antennas.

Slowing down, I flew over the shopping mall that marks the beginning of the approach to land at Wilson airport. The landing went smoothly, and we taxied to the security ramp to shut down. As the ambulance pulled up next to us, the heavens opened, and rain began with a deluge.

Thankfully we arrived at just the right time!

Fred and I helped unload the patient with her adult son, and the two physicians. As the ambulance pulled away, and drenched by rain, we climbed back into the airplane and taxied back to our hangar.

“Jerry, this flight went well. Just seemed to be a problem with the radios,” Fred said. He seemed less tense now that we were on the ground. I nodded. It did go well. I probably made some poor decisions on the way. Twelve years ago, in my evaluation to be accepted by AIM AIR, they often used theoretical situations like this to see how I would act. I realized today how much difference there is between a hypothetical discussion about a passenger dying and the pressure of the real situation.

From the first year we arrived in Kenya, the value AIM AIR brings has always been weighed and measured against its risk. God has used AIM AIR to save lives, and also been involved when lives and property were lost. Whether I like it or not, that is the nature of our ministry. It involves risk, large budgets (with a lot of zeros behind the dollar sign), and constant time pressure. Not being ready to fly could put someone’s life in critical danger. Going too soon, before the airplane or pilot are completely ready may also put someone’s life in critical danger.

In August, I put my hand on the tiller of AIM AIR. I don’t know what the terrain ahead will be . I sure didn’t expect to have the COVID-19 travel restrictions in force! Those travel restrictions have cost us tens of thousands of dollars a month. Those dark ridges of expense will be very tough to clear. There may a few antennas ahead from unexpected costs we can’t predict – equipment failure, an unexpected incident, or new legislation.

There is other pressure. We have over thirty families that sacrificed 5-10 years of their careers to prepare and come out to serve with AIM AIR. We have a dozen Kenyans and Ugandans who AIM AIR employs. And most significantly are the missionaries in remote areas, depending on us to be able to respond to their phone call and launch an airplane, as soon as possible, if they should need emergency attention.

I am praying AIM AIR survives this year. I think the value outweighs the risk. I think our team holds an incredible amount of talent they have committed to the Lord to use in whatever way helps His kingdom grow on earth and in heaven.

This could be a tense flight ahead, but I am praying that God will give me wisdom, and show me the route to fly – away from the ridges and antennas and rain showers, and along the route He has for AIM AIR.

And I’m grateful for each of you flying next to me for this next leg!

Until we can call “airport in sight”,

-Jerry and Breanna

P.S. I called about the patient two days after the flight and found out they were still alive, but still in ICU.