The extraordinary story of an impossible rescue mission getting more than 100 stranded South Africans and 86 Zimbabweans back home from China is being told on multiple media outlets (hyperlink https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-13-mission-almost-impossible-trying-to-fly-stranded-south-africans-back-home/) throughout the world – and at the centre of it is Tertius Myburgh, the South African who orchestrated the entire thing in his house, using just his cellphone.
Tertius is a commercial pilot currently living in Canada, and since he was retrenched in March, he’s been spending the lockdown helping South Africans get back home. “My involvement in these repatriations was purely, right in the beginning, to assist my former headmaster out of Myanmar. I wasn’t planning on doing more, but it snowballed from there when the word got out that we managed to get it right,” he told Travel News.
He said the operation (called Maple Aviation) was not commercial, but purely to assist people. He leased a Boeing 767 from Air Zimbabwe for the flights. “We’ve done about five trips now into Asia. There are smaller groups, and you won’t send an aircraft of that size and capability just for 30 people, so we ran through Asia like taxi service. We would get 50 in Manila, 40 in Cambodia, 30 in Vietnam, 40 in Maldives, and then head back. That’s how we did it.”
In June, Tertius was contacted by South Africans stranded in China, who were not able to get on flights arranged by the SA government. He said they had been stuck in China for five months. Some had expired visas and others had lost their jobs.
“We were going to collect them and, on the way, the aircraft broke down in Bangkok and needed a new engine, which put about a four-week delay on our extraction. A lot of these people were completely destitute, there was no money for food, and they were going to live on the floor of the airport building. The Chinese authorities were already getting a bit iffy with me about having people stranded at the airport, waiting for our plane.
“So I felt compelled to assist these people. We put them up in three hotels, because they would get a week in one hotel, and the hotel would have other bookings, so they moved to another, and carried on like gypsies around Wuhan. Everybody had breakfast and dinner every day. I did that for about three weeks and, right at the end when we got the new engine fitted, I was seriously running out of money – the timing was perfect when we got the aircraft fixed.”
While there were discussions with his family regarding the money he was using towards the rescue, he realised it wouldn’t affect his day-to-day life. “This was money we accumulated through our working life, and we said we can get it back,” he said. “We felt compelled to assist these people because if it wasn’t for me, I don’t know what would’ve happened to them. There were no other flights going out of China, and there was no other assistance coming.”
He said he charged about R17 500 for a ticket, because he was working purely on covering the costs. “If you look at a flight from China on Ethiopian Airlines, it’s anything between R70 000 and R110 000,” he said.
Tertius said he sent passenger lists to the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, and they would approve the list to check that everyone on the list was a citizen or resident – but, says Tertius, other than that, the government didn’t help with any arrangements. “The guy on the ground who was handling everybody, including South Africans, was Garikai Kashitiku of the Zimbabwean embassy who was physically there, in Wuhan. He arranged the hotels, and buses to and from the airport. He would be on phone with me, getting my credit card details for bookings. He was unbelievable and looked after everyone. Different countries’ embassies looked after our citizens, where our embassy was missing in action.”
Tertius is no stranger to aviation, and hopes that once the industry recovers and gets back to business, he will get a job. “I had my own little airline in South Africa between 2009 and 2013, Lux Air. We did a service to the mining town of Kathu, daily from Lanseria, as well as Ellisras, while they were building the Medupi power stations. I’ve been the director of operations at CemAir, an airline pilot with SAX, I’ve been all over. Aviation is all I know.”
He said he and his family were now focused on putting their lives back together. “I always try to remember the positive. At least these people are back home now. I get photos of them reunited with family, having a braai, grandad meeting the little one born in China for the first time… it makes it all worthwhile.”
Finally, Tertius said that all the media attention he received was not something that he’s used to. “It’s weird… very weird. My whole life I’ve been a nobody, just carrying on. It’s funny seeing yourself on TV and the newspaper, but it’s been humbling.”
