The witness reported that the aircraft was heading down the runway and appeared to be about to lift its nose off the ground, when the pilot suddenly slammed on brakes and brought the aircraft to a stop.  The 737 then taxied into a docking bay, where the starboard jet engine began smoking.  Apparently there had been a small (but not visible) fire in the engine pod (picture below, courtesy of our eye-witness)

The SAA Aircraft, after docking for emergency repairs

Emergency vehicles were called, and the fire put out.  However, passengers were only evacuated after this had taken place.  Witnesses claimed that the pilot should be commended for his quick action, without which a serious tragedy may have occurred had the aircraft been allowed to take off.

This comes after three incidents involving SAA Airlink planes in the last three months, raising concerns about the safety of SAA Airlink planes.

While this incident did not involve an SAA Airlink plane, it is worth noting that SAA and Airlink make use of the same aviation maintenance engineers, SAFair (source unconfirmed).

Get Scewed

On a recent flight from Cape Town to London, I paid for Virgin Atlantic and was instead put on South African Airways due to their “code share” cartel. In an homage to a famous Virgin complaint letter, I detail my experience:

Dear Richard Branson

When I pay for Virgin Atlantic, I expect Virgin Atlantic service. If you choose to partner with South Awful Airways, you need to make sure that the service is the same level as yours (putting mustard laden food aside).

Let me describe my experience to you Richard. On entering the tiny, ancient Airbus A340-200 that I was to sit on for 12 hours, I noticed that all the signs were in German. German, Richard, German. Now I’m not sure how much time you’ve spent in South Africa, but I’ve spent a fair bit, and I’m fairly sure that none of the official languages are German. But I put this aside, because surely my seat would be fine.

When I found my seat, instead of finding that little TV (as I seem to find on your aircraft, Richard) that would entertain me for the 12 hours  I was on this little Luftwaffe plane, there was just material. Blue, cheap, German material Richard. But never fear, SAA had thought about this, because for 12 hours they had graciously spared no expense on TWO movies, on beautiful CRT TVs that dropped from the bulkhead above. Even if I wanted to watch the ancient dribble that SAA had rented from Mr Video, it was lucky that I brought my own headphones with me, because SAA got bored by the time they got to row 66, and couldn’t be bothered to give out any more headphones. My own headphones, Richard.

As soon as the dribble was over, Richard – four hours into the 12 hour flight – SAA decided that it was time for bed. Lights out, crew away and oxygen off. Thats right, I haven’t been told what time to go to bed for years, but SAA knows best.

While I was sitting there staring at the blue cheap material, I thought it was getting rather hot. So I looked up to adjust the little airjet to blow some more air at me. Oh, whats that? There was NO air jet Richard. None. Did not exist. Clearly it was not efficient, so the Germans left it out.…

So there I was, hot, bored and overly exhausted wondering why I had paid so much money.
But it doesn’t end there Richard. On arriving in London, I thought, I’ll take this in to my own hands, and arrange to come back via a different route to ensure I don’t have to travel on South Awful Airways.

Your friendly and helpful consultant at your call-centre managed to move my flight – at a cost, of course. Let’s not be silly here Richard, of course you must charge us if we change our minds. It’s SUCH an inconvenience to you, I know.

Your friendly and helpful consultant managed to move my flight to the wrong day. Perhaps you should train them in English, Richard, because apparently that was not their fault, it was mine. And if I want to move it to the correct date, you must of course charge me again.

Richard, I moved my flight then to arrive in Johannesburg and paid at my own expense to get a domestic flight back to Cape Town. Why do I have to go through these things Richard? Why?