Diamond Mine Congo Project

Diamond Mine Airfreight Heavy Lift Congo Project 

This project  consisted of setting up a new base camp in the heart of the Congo jungle, from every tent, water filtration unit, power source, mining equipment, cooking facilities, medication, literally everything that was required for 30 men to explore new Diamond Mines and survive in some of the most harsh and remote conditions on the planet.This required sending a team of our own staff from England to consolidate all the equipment coming in from several Worldwide collection points then arrange the packing and loading at Johannesburg airport for the flight across Africa on 2 chartered Ilushian 76 cargo planes, landing in the very centre of the unexplored Congo Jungle, the landing strip was an old disused runway  without lights, communication or navigation aids, however this was the only way in as the Jungle is too impenetrable for vehicles.

Months of logistic planning and staff in Johannesburg  and Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic republic of Congo finally lead to the ground breaking permission by the Governments of both Countries and the airspace of several other countries to allow these huge aircraft in. You can imagine legislation and delicate negotiations  required to gain the authority to land the 2 aircraft . To add to the pressure and drama, an aircraft of this size had never landed on the 1.5 km runway and we were also sending in 20,000 litres of highly flammable  AV-Gas in a fuel bowser!

Sean Henson of Allseas Global Logistics airfreight division, Trade Air Freight, joined by group Managing Director Andrew Morris both boarded the 1st flight along with a crew of 4 and 3 of the key mining personel. The aircraft departed right on time at 6.45 am heading to its first scheduled stop at Entebbe Airport, Uganda to re-fuel. The last part of the journey was incredible,flying at a low altitude of 9,000 feet the Ilushian  with its clear glass front nose cone enable us all to view the wonders of the Congo Jungle, the many rivers tributaries and marsh land eventually turned in a solid mass of Rain forest...for the final 1 hour of the flight ,all you could see was thick Jungle , huge trees jutting up as the plane lowered to about 6,000 feet due to the navigator explaining he had to run two sets of instruments as this air space was not well know and he was trying to take land fixes by way of some of the small river tributaries.  
 
As we approached a clearing in the jungle appeared and with that the plane turn sharply and we started our. Quite violently the plane dropped down and as soon as we hit the very start of the landing strip the engines were put into reverse thrust. The plane was bouncing from side to side and the whole aircraft seemed to be under incredible braking forces, the load had taken 3 days of careful stowage and it was packed in so tightly and strapped to ensure that the load didn't shift for this very landing. We now had only 2 hours to completely unload the Aircraft  and we were met by a Customs official who  we had organised to be flown in by a small private charted aircraft. Documents were handed over and in the intense heat we proceeded to unload the entire aircraft.

With all the equipment off loaded and the plane now be started for take off it was time for goodbye to the maybe 40 local villagers who had appeared out of the jungle,what a sight it must have been for them to see this huge `white bird`  roaring across the jungle top and landing  with clouds of dust.. The plane left at 3.30 pm  and we felt very satisfied we knew we had done it!.. the now empty Il 76 looked big enough to play tennis and a shattered but belated Sean and Andrew congratulated themselves and the crew for completing the first shipment and indeed landing of this type