POLITICIANS - BEWARE THE IDES OF FLIGHT.

THE HIGHER ART OF KILLING

The sparkle of coalition diplomacy presumes that both Principals will be around at the lapse of the interim period to contest power within a reworked constitutional framework.

These thoughts are wont to fly in the eye whenever a genial photojournalist captures either the ODM or PNU negotiators disembarking from the same plane as if in total spite of the recent history. In 2002, Kenyans were shocked to see a manifest of cabinet Ministers and their understudies crash on takeoff at Busia aerodrome. Graca Machel’s presence also reminds us of her first husband’s demise from a controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) enroute home to Mozambique.

The Marsabit tragedy that killed ten eminent persons on a peace mission was another Narc watch flight that should have served as caution enough. Regardless, it is generally accepted that it was Germanic fascism that made blind obedience to temporal commands the highest virtue of skilled man and put a premium on servility. Most of diplomatic flight is operant in nature the dangers notwithstanding.

It is not enough for us to forget that the Habiyarimana – Bizimungu flight shoot down that precipitated the Rwanda genocide was such a plot. Without mention of Dr. John Garang’s mysterious copter crash, the question begs; who runs the politician’s flight schedule fortune glass?

Legislators have of late invoked a wolf cry demanding twenty-four hour security at tax payer’s expense. The assumption has to be that such threats can only be executed through overt assassinations. Far from it: there is a new theory on the ‘higher art of killing’.

It posits silent liquidations that make death appear as natural as possible. It is derived from the El Nino factor. When warm currents hit continental shore and push away cold water, fish die because warm water has less oxygen. Such water is unable to support algae, the fishes’ vital pudding. While fishermen waste away from low catch, third party birds of prey starve.

Aeroplane flight can become a form of disposal where caution has been thrown out of the window. Derelict aerodromes like the then Busia combined with flamboyant ignorant politicians flown onto suspect runways without stop ways or clearways are an odd combination for unmitigated disasters. Mist (low stratus) offers perfect stealth for induced incursions (runway collisions) on high altitude aerodromes.

Partially depressurized cabins or un-pressurized flight is enough to dispense a known alcoholic into hypoxia stupor. An intoxicated body has low ability to absorb oxygen, a gas that is already rear at high altitude. Politicians who still think that beautiful stewardesses are carried aloft to serve hot snacks at cruise should also ask one to explain what loss of humidity means in flight.

Private jets and their confined cabins are the most vulnerable of cages for a singular target.Where pilots have separate flight suits, emergency descent from 30,000 feet AMSL is a gamble in congested airspace. Nitrogen bubbles might form in a passenger’s blood stream if action is delayed. Besides, these cabins are no less effective than Hitler’s carbon monoxide meat vans.

These options would not be designed to kill. Like detention without trial which can be used to project a stroke, the sole purpose is to induce health deterioration in a maintenance class politician. While a victim is left thinking of post flight blues to be the proverbial jet lag, the mission is deemed a success when it impacts on the target’s health three or four years time. None between supporter or nemesis would be the wiser.Poor health is a disqualifier of political office in any version of constitutional blue print.

Fuel spiking is an old trick. Investigations and autopsy results would only create a martyr out of a perceived traitor to regional peace; traitor, that is, in the eyes of the phantom executioners.

When Yuri Gagarin - the first man in space - crashed in his MiG15 on the Ides of March 14, 1964, another pilot who had zapped Yuri’s flight path creating enough wake turbulence to stall the tiny MiG15 was initially held suspect. Though discarded later, the wake turbulence theory helped Russians understand why world war planes dropped out of the sky without being shot at after encountering the wake of heavy bodied friendly bombers.

Likewise, the first pilot to fly supersonic American Chuck Yeager nearly perished on another subsonic flight. His plane’s controls jammed in a spin. Height and slowed speed - not experience - saved him. Pilots who had died in the same type of fighter had to be exonerated posthumously. Investigations revealed that an elderly man at the assembly line had been inserting a bolt upside down. At certain speeds and attitudes, the controls jammed. Put another way for local politicians, at certain speeds and attitudes the controls of an aircraft can be rigged to jam. Nobody needs an altitude bomb to pull of a Bruce Mackenzie stunt anymore.

Kenya’s first person to die of an airplane accident was Madame Maia Carberry. It happened – again – the Ides of March 12, 1928. This lady of wings was such a polished pilot that at the material time she was giving flight instructions to a student who perished with her. Most settlers and pundits of the Happy Valley set believed she could only have been sabotaged. Short of that they were prepared to credit her cremation within a suicide farewell.

Even without taking issue with our politicians call for more security - they deserve it - personal vigilance is an obligation to base survival. There is no justification for Kenyan politicians to be seen boarding planes as if in contempt of the (2002) Muthoga inquiry. To the average citizen, these sardine flights are becoming a sorry character.

To others it might just be the opportune moment to validate an El Nino stealth run. As discerning Kenyans watch them enplane, they are left with no options but to wish them ‘sera sera’.

Someone just has to say it; Politicians, beware the Ides of Flight!

END.