Invictus - Carlin [101]
But there was no program on the simulator that could prepare him for the particular maneuver he had in mind. He had to go out and do some old-fashioned field work. “I spent a lot of time on the roof of Ellis Park and on the hills overlooking it to judge the best approach and to get a sense of what the fans would see. Ellis Park is in a depression and difficult to approach. I could see it was going to require an aggressive bit of flying.”
There was something of the Wild West about South Africa at that time. With so much radical change under way, the place felt recklessly alive with possibility. It was in such a spirit that Laurie Kay approached the most perilous professional challenge of his life.
“The Civil Aviation Authority has rules for flying over built-up areas and public gatherings. I believe the minimum altitude is two thousand feet. Well, obviously, these regulations had been momentarily waived. It was up to me to decide how low to go.” Kay and his copilot and engineer took off and headed, like a Second World War bomber crew, toward their target.
“We were three guys in the cockpit but as we prepared for our final approach I said, ‘Okay, guys. I’ll take full responsibility now.’ Because it was no good flying on an occasion like this so high they could hardly hear you. So I came down at a low angle to make sure that the words underneath could be read by the spectators, flying at the slowest speed possible short of a stall. At 140 knots. I went slow so that we could generate maximum power to climb once we were over the stadium. So when we got there—our time over target was between two and three seconds—we revved up the engines, we really opened up to their maximum sound and thrust so as to put as much noise and as much energy into the stadium as we possibly could.”
Kay flew so low he would have been jailed if the CAA hadn’t agreed to suspend the rules. He flew only two hundred feet above the stadium’s highest seats—the same distance as the plane’s wingspan. “And we made it back in time nicely, for the second flypast, inside eighty seconds,” said Kay, modestly adding, “We had factors in our favor. Visibility was terrific. No wind. But above all I wanted us to send a message down to the stadium, that we were strong and we were going to win. And so, yes, we emptied all the power we could muster into the stadium.”
The first reaction of the crowd, most of whom did not see the plane coming, was sheer terror. It was as if a huge bomb had gone off inside the stadium. The impact of the Boeing 747’s four screaming engines deafened every person in the stadium, making its walls vibrate. Louis Luyt was up in the presidential suite at the time, with Mandela next to him.
“How I jumped!” Luyt exclaimed. “And Mandela jumped too!” As did everyone in the stadium. “The bastard!” grinned Luyt, referring to Captain Kay. “He never told us he was going to fly that low. At two hundred feet! I got such a scare! He could so easily have touched the top of the stadium.”
Surprise and shock gave way to thunderous elation. That power Captain Kay emptied into the stadium electrified every soul present, and kept the crowd purring right to the game’s end. But that was nothing compared to the impact of act three of the pregame show.
Five minutes before kickoff, Nelson Mandela stepped out onto the field to shake hands with the players. He was wearing the green Springbok cap and the green Springbok jersey, buttoned up to the top. When they caught sight of him, the crowd seemed to go dead still. “It was as if they could not believe what their eyes were seeing,” said Luyt. Then a chant began, low at first, but rising quickly in volume and intensity.
Morné du Plessis caught it as he emerged out of the dressing room and down the players’ tunnel onto the field. “I walked out into this bright, harsh winter sunlight and at first I could not make out what was going on, what the people were chanting, why there was so much excitement before the players had even gone out onto the