Have you ever heard of planes landing on one engine? Well, It happened to me and other passengers when we boarded a turbo prop plane. When you are excited about a certain journey that you having the following morning, sleep becomes meaningless to you. This time round I was super happy and scared at the same time, it was my first time in a flight, little did I know that in a few minutes my flight would be landing on one engine.

I WOKE UP FOR MY FIRST FLIGHT EVER

I woke early (very unusual of me) by 6AM I was at Jomo Kenyatta international airport domestic departures. Jambojet. was the airline I chose because it was a little bit affordable for me. since it was my first flight, I did not want to get late so I opted to call uber taxi. By 8:05am I was already on my window seat ready for departure. Our plane was one of those turbo props planes that leaves you thinking whether the engine blades would able to propel the whole cabin into the skies. We settled in and within no time our plane lined up for take off. The old turbo powored engine tried it’s best, it accelerated pruuuuuuuuuuu and up we were. We said goodbye to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Nairobi as Moi International Airport Mombasa awaited us. Five or so minutes into our flight, the flight attendants started serving the cabin. I was thirsty for a Tusker Beer but upon learning about the price I chose to shut my beak until I in Mombasa.

THE BEAUTY OF MT. KILIMANJARO

“Ladies and gentlemen we are now flying over Mt Kilimanjaro, look on your right side and you’ll see it” announced the pilot (son from Gema community, very composed young man.. probably same age as mine but a bit taller and more lighter). Mt. Kilimanjaro is surely beautiful from the skies, Africa is rich, we just don’t want to admit it but we are blessed with so much, I while ago I watched a movie call BLACK PANTHER, and to be honest Africa was perfectly portrayed well in the movie. Back to our story, few seconds later I heard boooom, I thought maybe ni thunderstorms, a large sound rocked the plane, It sounded more of thunder rather than a bomb. I knew things weren’t okay when I saw the cabin attendants running to their jump seats. The African in them allowed them to show a little bit of fear but tried to hide it.

THE PILOT ANNOUNCED ABOUT THE LEFT DAMAGED ENGINE

The pilot announced that we had a left damaged engine and we’d be turning back to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Nairobi since they didn’t have an aeronautical engineer in Mombasa on that day. The flight path from whatever we were to Nairobi meant that the plane had to go close Mount Kilimanjaro fly above it and turn back to now a new assigned route. Air traffic controllers are heroes in the skies, these guys do a lot of work without any mistake just to ensure that we all get to our destinations bila matata. Our flight JH..(forgot some initials) was given priority from 28,000ft and below, all aircrafts flying or passing near our assigned route were caution about a doomed old turbo prop jet that is coming Nairobi. Long story cut short, our 15minutes flight from Kilimanjaro back to JKIA was a nightmare I will never forget to this day. Most of the passengers were Chinese and some few Mijikendas. The Chinese kept their cool but the Giriama guys couldn’t take it kabisaaa, kwanza kulikua na mmoja na kitambi, the guy literally wept in his mother tongue, others prayed silently other vomited… As for me, my mind was somewhere else, I do watch a lot of aircrash investigations. I tried to come up with my own survival techniques in case we crash landed.