ENGINE FIRE!

Iris McCallum's continues her stories about her early years with Air Kenya, and we get to revisit one of her more dramatic moments.

- LAURA MCDERMID

NAIROBI’S WILSON AIRPORT was peaceful on this 11th day of February 1981 which made filling out the paperwork for my flight to Tana River County uncomplicated.

Air Kenya had booked me to charter five passengers on a Cessna C401 to the Bura cotton fields; 366km north east of Kenya’s capital.

It was still dry season in Kenya and with no thunderstorms predicted, I knew it would be a smooth flight provided we could depart before it became too turbulent.

‘I better be really careful with this preflight check. N65175 had just come back from an MPI’ I thought.

I ran my hands over the familiar curves of the big Cessna twins’ airframe with affection, examining all the bolts and screws and wiggling the hinges. I opened the inspection hatch to check the level of the clean new transparent oil.

‘Main tanks, tip tanks and the two auxiliary tanks are full with 100LL Avgas. Check. She’s ready to fly’ Preflight done, I herded the smartly dressed businessmen up the short stairs. Once everyone was strapped in and comfortable I secured the clam-shell door.

I took my seat, buckled the harnesses and adjusted my headset, flattening my wild “bush pig” curls.

Master switch.....ON. Left engine fuel boost pump.... ON. Opening the mixture briefly to full rich...... press start. The engine coughed and spluttered, the propellor turned once lazily, halting briefly through its arc. The old Cessna gave an almighty shudder as the propellor swung into life.

Left engine ..... good to go.

I repeated the sequence for the right engine. I leaned the mixtures, made sure that the oil pressures had come up and waited for the temperatures to rise.

The Continental engines purring in unison, I taxied to the holding point of runway 14 to perform the run-ups.

“Welcome on board, this is your captain Iris McCallum. May I please have five minutes of your time to brief you on the emergency protocols.”