How a Boeing 747 and its pilot galvanised the faithful at Ellis Park

stadium to help pump up the fans and energise the players before the big match.

In Dan Retief ’s The Springboks and the Holy Grail he writes: “This was the piece de resistance of Merle McKenna’s closing ceremony – a moment so huge that it would never be forgotten, no matter whether the Springboks won or lost. And she had pulled it off.”

But it wasn’t only McKenna’s doing. A fairly big group of people had to be part of the planning process and there were quite a few logistical issues to get sorted out before Kay could take over the airspace above the stadium.

Kay, who passed away at the age of just 67 in 2013, recalls the planning process in The Springboks and the Holy Grail.

“I only got involved when they said, ‘Let’s put a 747 over the stadium’. That’s the Boeing 747, the one with the bulge. It’s a huge piece of metal. I’d been involved in aerobatics and stunt flying my whole life, and display aeroplanes at airshows, so it was not as if it was something new to me.

“It was just wonderful to be given the opportunity to have a 747 at my disposal, as opposed to what, in comparison, was a model aeroplane.

“There was no way we could fly over the city to prac- tise, plus you have to remember that it was a commercial plane – utilised daily – so all our preparation was done in the simulator. In any case, we wanted to keep it a surprise – we didn’t want the nation to know about it, so we couldn’t practise the low flight in a 747 prior to the actual event.

“It took quite a lot of planning. We had meetings with Ellis Park, Johannesburg City Council, Merle McKenna, SABC producer Ken Kirsten, civil aviation, the air-traffic controllers, military air-traffic controllers – there were such a lot of loose ends to tie up. “And insurers, of course. “Beforehand I went onto the field at Ellis Park with a GPS to get the exact position. I also went up onto the roof of the stadium, and onto the Berea Hills just to the north.

“I wanted to know what the people in the stadium were going to see and feel. So, by spending a lot of time at Ellis Park, on the roof, in the stands, then up on the hill, I got a good idea of what was required.

“During the planning Ken Kirsten (the producer) said, ‘I want you over the stadium at 2:32.45.’

“My next question to him was, ‘How much leeway do we have?’

“‘This is international TV; we’re going out internationally, so it must be 2:32.45’,” he replied. I thought, bloody hell, this isn’t Airwolf.”

McKenna says she wanted to do something really special for the final. “Newlands (and the opening ceremony) had been good, but the problem was how to follow it. Louis Luyt (president of then Sarfu) summoned me to his office and said, ‘How are you going to make the closing ceremony better than the opening one?’

“‘That was RWC and it was Newlands, but this is Sarfu and Ellis Park. So what are we going to do?’

“‘I said the only way we could top it was to take to the air. SAA had been keen to get involved, and the obvious idea of a flyover got bigger and bigger until someone said, ‘No one’s ever done it with a Jumbo before.’ I told Doc Luyt that I needed a bit more money and his permission to do it.

“‘He said, ‘You’ve got it’, and told me to get on with it.”