The Mystery of Flights to Nowhere
A new eight-part series, Flights to Nowhere that premieres on People’s Weather (DStv CH-180 and OpenView, CH-115) on Monday, 19 April 18h00, will have viewers glued to their seats as it investigates some of South Africa’s most famous aviation mysteries
There is nothing that grips the imagination as a story shrouded in mystery and intrigue; one that leaves you hanging, questioning and desperate to know the answers. As humans, we are wired to tie up all the loose ends; to make sense of the unknown and the nonsensical and to keep asking ‘why’ until we know. Veteran commercial pilot, Wouter Botes, who hosts this fascinating series, understands this and has made solving mysteries his life’s work. Best described as South Africa’s own Indiana Jones, flying detective and relentless clue-searcher, Botes takes viewers into the world of the seemingly unsolvable cold case.
Based on his recently published eBook published by African Pilot, the series looks at some of this country’s most inexplicable aviation disasters and disappearances to uncover the truth about them. Join Botes as he uncovers the facts of numerous flights that seemingly went nowhere, such as Flight SA 406, aka the Rietbok a Vickers Viscount that disappeared into the sea off East London in 1967; the two young soldiers who disappeared near God’s Window in Mpumalanga, never to be seen again and the Beechcraft Baron 58 twin-engine aircraft, that took off from Robertson in the Southern Cape on 10 July 1985, destined for Cape Town, but disappeared without a trace.
What drives Botes in his quest for answers for these and many more unsolved South African aviation stories? “The only reason we have unsolved flight mysteries is that either the wreck has not been located yet or no-one is talking,” says Botes. “I love the chase in trying to solve them. Taking the ever-present weather and fuel, the pilot’s state of mind and the facts leading up to and after the disappearance or crash, there is always a golden thread that runs through each story. My passion is to link these up to try and make sense of what happened.” Botes’ success in trying to piece together bits of a story, he believes, lies in his ‘eye for clues’ and understanding aviation and that he can immediately ‘see the gaps in the timelines.’
“That is where you begin, the spaces in-between the story that no-one is talking about, or no information can be found,” says Botes.
Of particular interest to aviation fanatics is that all the featured flights were recreated for this series. As an experienced veteran pilot, Botes was able to fly these on a flight simulator at Blue Chip Flight School at Wonderboom National Airport in Pretoria.