Tales of Capt Robbie Mack

Go Slows’ and Nine Lives In 1996, the Country Manager, Alastair, had returned from his leave and I was going back to Switzerland to help Ant St Cloud develop the Safety Management System. The night before had been a particular busy night with friends in the local pub and I was not feeling at my best when I awoke at 6.30am as usual. I had to go to Aker Base to take the new South African Chief Officer to the Red Martin II. As Alastair was back, he had the Mercedes which although old, at least had air conditioning. I was left with the Peugeot 504 which at that time I believe was only being built in Nigeria and Kenya. In research, I see that the 504 was named the European Car of the Year at the Paris Motor Show in 1969. I strongly suspect, although we were then in 1996, that this one may have been the original car from Paris. This particular model, from the otherwise refined Peugeot range, I would liken to the Lada being built for the Russian market: cheap as chips and so the most popular car on the road. The Chief Officer and myself sweltered in the 504 in the humid heat and the horrendous traffic to Aker Base. The journey was only around twelve miles but it would take more than an hour at best that day. In discussion with the South African, who was destined for his first trip with the company, I couldn’t help but notice that he was constantly pulling at the skin on his arm. I asked if he had been bitten by a mosquito, to which he replied, ‘Yes - and no.’ Curious, I asked him to explain. I understood that being an African, he was much more used to these hideous insects than most of us. But I was not prepared then for the very detailed lecture he then provided on the workings of the mosquito. A mosquito excretes saliva that stops blood vessels from restricting. What I did not know was that a mosquito can bite for up to four minutes sucking blood, and the saliva has the same effect as an anaesthetic, enabling the mosquito to remain undetected whilst it probes your skin for a blood vessel. What this young lad told me was that if you pull your skin tight as the mosquito is probing beneath your skin for blood vessels it becomes trapped. But I remember thinking WHY would anyone want to do that? If you know it’s there, just kill the damn thing. As for most expats in Africa, I suffered a few times from Malaria. In the environments we worked in, it was just one of the risks we took. Remarkably, even though I sweated like a turkey on Christmas Eve, I rarely had to endure the serious side-effects that some did. On return from dropping off the new Chief Officer, I was feeling even more the worse for wear as the heat and humidity was unbearable. It was now around 1pm and time to head off to the airport. My flight home to London was usually at around 11pm from Lagos, arriving in London around 6am then transferring to the 7.35am flight to Glasgow where my family would be waiting. The flight time from Port Harcourt to Lagos was only one hour but of course the local carriers were not the most reliable - both technically and by schedule. There were many flights but the most reliable airline was ADC and their last flight left Port Harcourt at around 4.30pm. It would land at Terminal 2 in Lagos at 5.30pm from where I would be escorted to Terminal 1. I would then have five hours to wait for my London flight but this was always the preferred option. I say departure was around 4.30pm because these flights were held back until they had enough passengers to make the flight economically viable. Embele, my valued driver, and I left Chief Nemi estate at around 1.30pm with my bags in the boot. Aba Road - the main thoroughfare through Port Harcourt - was completely blocked so Embele took a shortcut through the Air Force Base but at the other end, it was just as bad. The heat and humidity was debilitating and we were now stopped once again with no air conditioning and not even the welcome breeze from a moving car. We sat for twenty minutes approaching a roundabout that was littered with precariously loaded trucks, hundreds of motor bikes otherwise known as okadas, trailers, trolleys, cars and even men just pushing wheelbarrows. These roundabouts usually had a traffic officer standing proudly on a pedestal in the centre of the roundabout. Trying to manage the impossible traffic, in their orange top and black trousers, these guys tended to cause even more confusion. The word ‘roundabout’ in Nigeria is a word without meaning: it didn’t matter which way you went as long as you reached the other side first. This obviously caused ridiculous blockages at one exit even if all other exits were quite clear. I told Embele I did not feel well and would have to go back. In any case, I did not want to be rushing at the airport. I would simply fly to Lagos in the morning and visit a few clients whilst there. Then I could travel to the Muhammad Murtalla Airport in relative comfort, without this stress. But not getting me to the airport on time would have been seen as a sign of failure for Embele so he insisted we would make it. We did eventually pass through the first roundabout. Again, we met a traffic jam at the next one which was a mile distant but closer to the airport. But this ‘go slow’ was not as bad as the first and I knew that the traffic would decrease as we moved further out of the Garden City (Port Harcourt) and towards the Airport. This time we took only fifteen minutes to negotiate the traffic but by now it was 2.45pm and my flight was at 4.30pm so I told Embele one more ‘go slow’ and we must go back. Reluctantly, he agreed. We then reached the next roundabout and there had obviously been an accident so chaos had ensued. Embele, noticing by this time that I was becoming progressively more ill, admitted defeat and with great difficulty did a u-turn. There were no mobile phones in Nigeria then so we headed to the agent’s offices to inform them of our travel predicament and to ask that they inform the travel department to rearrange flights for the next day. It took Embele and I just as long to get back and we arrived at the Panalpina offices at 6.05pm with dusk looming. I was feeling very ill and exhausted by this time. But I woke up considerably when half the office staff came running out, hugged me around the waist, screaming and crying. I knew I was popular and tried to tell them I was still going home tomorrow. It was only when the expatriate boss came out to tell me that the ADC flight I had been booked on had crashed on approach to Lagos with the suspected loss of all 144 lives on board. It transpired that the ADC flight was on final approach and, through untidy aircraft separation by air traffic control, was on a collision path with an ascending aircraft and both had to bank violently to avoid collision. The ascending aircraft was on full power and managed to recover but the ADC Flight was on reduced power for approach and did not have sufficient thrust to recover. The aircraft was 27 years old but that would be considered young in Nigeria. There were six people from our small expat community on that aircraft. I went to meet my friend Pat Brogan that night who, in his true Irish style, was blissfully unaware of the incident or that he may never have seen his old mate again.