An attempt by two South African microlight pilots to circumnavigate the globe nearly ended in disaster on Friday when they had to make an emergency landing in Thailand, a spokesperson said on Monday.
Dominique le Roux said she received word of the near disaster late on Sunday night.
The pilots, Alan Honeyborne and Ricky De Agrela, were over the jungle between Myanmar and Thailand when their microlight suddenly started losing altitude.
”One minute we were cruising along, the next the revs dropped and with that, I started to lose altitude — not something that goes down well over the jungle,” Honeyborne said. Back-up systems were engaged and the men managed to fly to Kamphaeng Saen, a military airfield about 80km miles from Bangkok, where they landed.
After landing, the problem was isolated to contaminated fuel. The microlight’s fuel system was cleaned out and filled with fresh fuel, after which the two took off again, flying to Bangkok without any problems.
The expedition started in Cape Town on December 16. The pilots have so far flown through 13 countries and over 15 000km. They went up the east coast of Africa, via the Middle East, to India, Nepal, Myanmar and Thailand.
From Bangkok they will be heading south through Malaysia, Indonesia and on to Australia. The Freedom Flight expedition will take 18 months and the men will cross 50 countries and fly nearly 90 000km.
If they complete it, it will be a world record for the category of aircraft and a first for Africa and South Africa as a flight around the world. – Sapa