Lorenzo Taverna-Turisan, NSRI Durban coxswain, said: At 11h16, Saturday, 29 March, ARCC (Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre) alerted on the ARCC early warning network of a light aircraft, with 2 males onboard, an instructor pilot, age 28 and a trainee pilot, age 18, flying a training flight from Pietermaritzburg to Virginia Airport, experiencing engine problems in the vicinity of Virginia Airport and appearing to be unable to make the runway.
Virginia ATC (Air Traffic Control) were monitoring and reported the pilot confirming that he would not make it to the runway and was looking to force land on the beach in the vicinity.
ARCC coordinated an emergency response.
The SA Police Services, Police Search and Rescue, NSRI Durban, eThekwini Fire and Rescue Services, Ensure Security, Netcare 911 ambulance services, ALS paramedics, SARZA (Search and Rescue South Africa) and Virginia ATC authorities responded.
Virginia ATC confirmed that the aircraft had landed on the beach in the vicinity of West of Virginia Beach and the Pilot confirmed that there were no injuries.
Gate access to the beach was being arranged.
An NSRI 4×4 rescue vehicle assisted to get NSRI rescue crew and Police Search and Rescue to the scene and SARZA 4×4 rescue vehicles assisted with further access to the aircraft in cooperation with Police and Fire and Rescue Services.
The aircraft was found safely on the beach but threatened by the incoming Spring high tide.
Emergency services attended at the scene where the aircraft was removed from the beach.
AIID (Accident and Incident Investigations Division) are investigating the incident.
The 2 pilots, shaken but in good spirits, were transported to Virginia Airport.
ARCC are commended for coordinating the emergency response and the swift response of all involved is commended.
The pilot has been commended for making the safe emergency landing.
Insane Sweepkick
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Sweet Manhattan
The difference between the South African football team and a tea bag is that the tea bag stays in the cup