40 years of DAI

14
Travelers’ Tales
In 1979, Charlie Sweet and Tony Barclay were
traveling together on assignment with the
North Shaba project in the Congo. The pilot
who usually flew the project plane backed
out at the last minute, so they hired a Belgian
pilot who claimed to know the interior to take
them to the field. They survived to tell the
tale, but only just.
There’s only one way to navigate the Congo,
and that’s to know the landmarks between
the rivers and rainforests, and always keep
them in sight. Once the plane was airborne,
it quickly became evident to the DAI pair that
their pilot had no such familiarity with the
Congolese interior. As the meandering plane
began to run low on fuel, it became more and
more apparent that the pilot was simply lost.
The only other passenger—a laid-back Californian,
organizational development consultant,
and amateur pilot—said: “He can’t kill us
in this plane. It doesn’t fly fast enough.”
The fuel gauge hovered near empty; the
passengers wondered where the pilot might
put down. He initially thought to land on
some standing water but ended up changing
course, heading for a road with a yellow
truck on it (intending to ask the truck driver
for directions), and crash-landing in the
bush. A frantic last-second radio message,
consisting almost entirely of expletives, to
another aircraft in the vicinity meant that the
downed plane’s whereabouts were at least
known—so Barclay and Sweet, miraculously
unscathed, were able to catch another plane
the next day.
Shown here: Sweet (left) and Barclay, just
after the landing.