Moate woman 'lucky to be alive' after aircraft crash landing in South Africa

A young Moate woman is lucky to be alive this week after a light aircraft in which she was a passenger was forced to crash land in the middle of a nature reserve in South Africa when its propeller became detached.

Well-known local artist Tamsin Argent (30) who lives in Oakhill, Moate, with her mother, Adrienne, and has an art studio in Tubber, was taking “a dream trip” from Johannesburg to Cape Town in South Africa in a fixed wing light aircraft with her godfather on Thursday afternoon last.

Disaster struck as the aircraft was flying at 1,500ft above sea level on the spectacular Cape Peninusula, just outside Cape Town.

“Suddenly we heard a really big bang, and we got a huge fright because we didn’t know what was after happening,” explained Tamsin.

“So my godfather, Thomas Crook, sent out an immediate Mayday message and he began to glide the aircraft inland,” she said, in an interview with the Westmeath Independent from South Africa.

The experienced pilot managed to make a descent from 1,500ft above sea level onto one of only two tarred roads in the 7,750 hectare Cape Point Nature Reserve in just two minutes.

However, the tail winds on his approach to the Olifantsbos road caused the aircraft to lose control and veer into thick bushes and undergrowth.

The force of the landing caused Tamsin to be thrown out of the aircraft, and when emergency services arrived on the scene within seconds they located her underneath one of its wings.

“I was badly shaken, and I’m still on crutches, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises I am perfectly fine,” said a very relieved Tamsin this week, who added that both herself and her godfather were “really, really lucky to be alive.”

Tamsin’s godfather, who was still in the pilot seat of his aircraft when the emergency services arrived, received a large gash to his head which required 14 stitches, but was otherwise uninjured in the crash.

The seven-hour light aircraft trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town offers some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, and Tamsin recalled how, minutes before the light aircraft suffered mechanical failure, “both myself and my godfather had tears in our eyes as we flew over Robben Island with Table Mountain in the background because the views were just so breathtaking.”

She is loud in her praise of the expertise of her godfather in managing to glide the aircraft inland and described him as “an amazing pilot” who was undertaking “the trip of a lifetime” across South Africa.

While both Tamsin and Thomas, who has been a pilot for the past 15 years, feel that “lady luck” had a lot to do with their miraculous survival, one of the luckiest aspects of their story revolves around the fact that the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, was in Cape Town City Hall on Thursday last to deliver his sixth State of the Nation address.

“The fact that this State of the Nation address was taking place meant that the South African airforce were in our airspace on security detail, so when Thomas sent out his Mayday call they were able to pick up our location immediately and both they and the emergency services were on the scene as soon as we touched the ground,” said Tamsin.

She feels this was “crucial” to their survival, and she also credits the fact that Thomas was able to bring the aircraft inland rather than having to crash land in the Atlantic Ocean as another major contributory factor to their surviving the terrifying incident.

“It was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to locate the small tarred road in the middle of the Cape Point Nature Reserve because most of it is made up of dramatic rock formations and vast open plains,” she pointed out.

Describing the event as “quite an ordeal” it has not put the travel-mad Moate resident off flying!

The South African-born artist, who moved to Moate with her parents in 2007, only arrived in Johannesburg on January 29 with a large art installation, and to visit members of her family who still live there, and she is planning to return home to Moate in early March.

In between times she is planning to undertake quite a bit of air travel, including a trip to Zanzibar “to drink Pina Coladas on the beach” she joked, and she also has a number of trips planned to different parts of the world with her art installations later this year.

She can still recall how terrified she was the first time she flew in her godfather’s light aircraft.

“I had to make three attempts at it before I got over the fear as you can feel every bit of turbulence,” she said.

“I only got comfortable after my godfather explained it in really simple terms when he said ‘we even have potholes in the sky’” laughed Tamsin.