What a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing it!

Another "I flashed my highfalutin pilot's license and told 'em I was a journalist" stories.

What an egotistical bore you are.

Greetings

Oh get off his ass...

It was a good story, and well told

Enjoy the journey

WarLord

I don't imagine I will ever find myself flying from Kumasi to Ghana. I'm glad that there was someone who could flash his highfalutin' pilot's license, have an adventure, and then tell me all about it. If you hadn't been able to finagle your ride, I'm sure we would have been treated to an engaging story about your ride across Kumasi in a tro-tro to the ATM, and I bet it would have been almost as interesting.

Thank you, Patrick, and please don't let the negative feedback ever influence your choice of subjects for your column.

...kinda like when I flew from Belize City to San Jose, Belize in the first officer seat of a Cessna Caravan. No special accomodation, though - in that plane it was just a seat, and the plane was crammed full!

So should we take the mysterious "two months after Christmas" remark to mean you are back on the line? With who?

Well, I liked it.

Patrick. I mean Jared.

By the way, I experience exactly the same flexibility, humanity and courtesy when flying in China and which is so lacking here.

Not more with the Dark Continent fetish. God almighty.

Patrick, where does the Indonesian airline industry fit into your vision of exaggerated concern over safety?

And how many more 737s have to go down before you tell us something about the rudder control element that maybe was, maybe wasn't redesigned correctly the second (third?) time around.

Less misty-eyed travelogue and more expert insight.

A very enjoyable little tale. Thanks for posting it!

"I'm resourceful this way, remembering the time, in 1994, that I talked my way onto an overbooked 727 without a ticket, or the time I finagled passage on a Twin Otter carrying auto parts from Culebra, Puerto Rico, to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This time, digging out my pilot's licenses and issuing a garbled plea about being an "aviation journalist," I ask to speak with the captain."

Well, asshole, you're not an "aviation journalist." You're just another liar and a freeloader.

And suddenly it dawns on you, Hmmm! There's not one, but TWO black pilots! Oh my lord, there's no WHITE MAN up there in case something goes wrong! What an adventure indeed!

Disgusting.

Nice story, Patrick. Although unplanned, it was neat to get the story both from the flight deck AND the cabin. The best flying experiences I've had were when airline employees were flexible and resourceful enough to go that extra mile to help. It's nice to see that spirit alive in an off-the-beaten-track place like Ghana.

... that provokes this kind of writing?

He thinks it's somehow noteworthy that he comes across 2 black pilots... in Africa. This is because of how few there are in America, he claims. Would he have had the same reaction in, say, Indonesia or China and cited the dearth of Asian pilots in America as an excuse to point it out?

I really don't think so, and I think it was a cheap thing to include here.

This kind of casual yet servicable anarchy is exactly how it goes. Sometimes it works to your advantage sometimes it doesn't. At least they don't have titanium brooms up their ass like in the US where everything is a goddamn matter of national security.

Great column. Stories like these and Q&A about flying arcana are why I'm a regular reader. Keep it up.

I thought it was well written, interesting, and informative; and the comments about the dearth of black pilots in the U.S. were offered as a relevant counterpoint to what he was seeing in the cockpit.

Locutus, I used to be in your camp, but if you're going to attack someone no matter what they write, you lose credibility.

Hats off to Capt. Kwame Mamphey for giving us all such a nice ride! I am sure that having Salon‘s Pilot in the jump seat was every bit and more as intimidating, no matter how charming Mr. Smith acted at the time, as US pilots experience when having a check rider from FAA. If it were me, I would have forgotten to lower the gear.

Dear Mr. Martin,

I thoroughly enjoyed your article about your flight from Kumasi to Accra. It described scenes and experiences very familiar to me. I spent several weeks in Ghana from 1991-1993 doing engineering projects for the Tema Refinery in Accra. I flew a Ghana Airways DC-10 from London to Accra, and also British Airways and Swiss Air from Accra back to London and to Zurich.

I remember a BA flight stopping at Kano and the crew going up the aisle with disinfectant spray to kill the bugs (mosqitoes?)

Your words bring to life the views of the Sahara and the changing hues as the terrain changed from desert to jungle and the daylight vanished from the sky. I remember them well.

All the Ghanaians I met were friendly and yes, speaking English certainly made doing business more enjoyable.

I also had the dubious experience of flying into Lagos in 1980, where the airport was on the internation list of places of minimum security and maximum danger.

Thanks for the memories. Bob Givey

My own experiences included a Dakar-Nouakchott flight on Air Mauritanie aboard a meticulously clean, refurbished Boeing 737 that put most domestic US planes to shame. Despite tales from veteran expats of having to run from the terminal to the plane in order to secure a seat on overbooked flights, we were all given assigned seats and the whole process was more orderly and polite than the mob of agitated Frenchmen I'd had to fight to get aboard at Charles de Gaulle.

On the other hand, I had the opportunity to fly Nigeria's Bellview Airlines from Lagos to Abuja later the same month. Although my experience was pretty ordinary on the surface, the same exact plane later went down in flames and poor maintenance seems to have contribiuted to the crash.

I'm not quite sure what is inferred by: "Technically, West and Central Africa are the world's most unsafe regions for air travel". Emotionally, flying in Africa is perfectly safe? The numbers don't lie. Still, I'm glad to see some more responsible carriers enter the market.