Gunship Over Angola

Just days after the Nkongo incident, I crossed into Angola for the first of what would be countless visits over the coming years. It was standard practice that junior pilots like me would fly as ‘wingmen’ to more experienced pilots and learn the ropes from the oumanne (older guys). This practice, dating back to the early days of combat aviation, placed the onus for protecting the leader’s backside on his wingman. During the Border War, we strictly applied this principle and never crossed into enemy territory alone. There was always another aircraft to partner with you.

On this particular mission, both the formation leader and I were flying Alo III gunships, which each spouted 20 mm Oerlikon or Hispano side-firing cannons in the gap where the left-hand sliding door would normally be. We also carried around 250 rounds of ammunition in a ‘pan’ located on the floor in the front left of the helicopter.

We departed from the airfield at Ruacana, crossed the border just east of the Calueque Dam wall and continued for 70 kilometres northwards. We were flying at low level just to the east of the Kunene River (Portuguese spelling: Cunene) to a rendezvous point where we were to climb up to the Alo III’s most effective ‘fighting’ height of 600–800 feet (200–250 metres) above ground level (AGL) and give cover to a formation of Pumas that would be landing a company of our troops there. ‘Cover’ normally meant that the gunships arrived ten to fifteen minutes before the Pumas and we did our level best to ensure that there were no enemy anti-aircraft weapons or hostile troops awaiting their arrival.

The map of the area that we had that day was rudimentary at best and was held by the gunship formation leader, Lieutenant ‘Boats’ Olivier. It was a photocopy of a 30-year-old depiction of the area, hand-drawn by a Portuguese colonial land surveyor. Nevertheless, how hard could it be to find the designated landing zone (LZ) on terrain as flat as a pancake, where two well-used dirt roads intersected at right angles about 65 kilometres into Angola? The compass heading that we were following was only marginally important, as by keeping the north–south road below us and the huge expanse of the Kunene River just 200 metres to the west positioned us almost exactly above the desired track.

The far more important issue should have been the time required to fly to the target, but even that was largely disregarded as the map’s scale of distance seemed dubious and inaccurate. So, we relied heavily on the one clearly evident thing we had – the impossible-to-miss crossroads of the north–south and east–west roads right on the landing zone.

It was only in the aftermath of this event that we were to discover that the east–west road had fallen into disuse at least 20 years before and had become overgrown with riverine bush, completely obscuring it from aerial detection. We flashed by the LZ completely oblivious to that fact.

Another aspect that had escaped our pre-mission preparation was the looming presence of FAPLA (People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola) troops in the fortified town of Vila Roçadas (later Xangongo), situated just ten kilometres north of our intended LZ. From the missed LZ to the town at the cruising speed of the Alo III would take less than four minutes.

We ploughed nonchalantly onwards.

That day, my guardian angel decided to put in a most timeous and fortuitous appearance. We had just commenced the climb to ‘gun height’ (approximately 200 metres) and I was patiently waiting for Boats to begin the orbit around the LZ when suddenly it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. In that moment, I heard a woman’s voice inside my head screaming, ‘Get away! Get out of here!’

‘Boats, we’ve got to turn around,’ I yelled on the radio.

‘We’re not there yet,’ Boats responded.

‘We’re at the LZ and there is no sign of you guys!’ interrupted the concerned Puma formation leader. Then he barked out, ‘Wherever you are, get down and away from there. Immediately!’

Without a second’s hesitation both Boats and I turned sharply towards the south and dived for terra firma. Seconds later, the clear blue sky into which we had been heading erupted in a hellish scene of smoke, flame, exploding rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and tracer bullets. Had we continued on that path our aircraft would almost certainly have been blasted from the southern Angolan sky.

The split-second decision to escape gave us the time we needed to dive steeply for the trees and set a heading due southwards for the relative safety of the border, as fast as our little Alos could carry us. I know that it is not possible to fly below ground level in any aircraft, but in the 30 minutes that followed, Boats and I did the next best thing – dodging between the low acacia trees and scrubby little bushes pockmarking the arid landscape, all the way back across the border and to the airfield at Ruacana. There we quickly refuelled and set course for our primary base at Ondangwa.