My narrow escape from a burning aircraft

Addis Ababa airport

This morning I caught a connecting flight via Addis Ababa’s Bole airport. For me this place has always been like a magical wardrobe, leading me towards different adventures across Africa. Today Ethiopia is the world’s fastest-growing economy and Bole is a continental crossroads, teeming with religious pilgrims, wandering tourists, African traders and sunburned Chinese workers. When I pass through the airport I always look for the wreckage of a Boeing 707 jet I know so well. It still sits there, shoved off to the side of the tarmac apron, scarred by time and caked with dust.

On 11 July 1989 I was on that aircraft with a few other correspondents. We had been on a gruelling assignment to cover a military coup d’état in Khartoum. As we waited for the flight home to Nairobi, a blasting haboob sandstorm swept in and turned the Sudanese skies a Martian red.