Chapter 6

Champagne Castle slope.

The weather could not have been more different from the night the King Air met the mountain.

It was just after one in the afternoon, and late winter had put on one of those rare Drakensberg days that could lull an experienced pilot into believing the mountains were friendly. The sky overhead was a deep, polished blue from horizon to horizon, so clear it almost looked artificial. Not a single cloud drifted above the Central Berg, leaving the jagged skyline of Champagne Castle standing in sharp relief against the heavens.

The sun had climbed high enough to carry real warmth. Down in the valleys it would probably have passed for an early spring afternoon, but up here, clinging to the north-eastern face of the mountain, winter still refused to surrender completely.

The snow had changed character since we’d first stood here.

Two days earlier it had been hard, crisp and untouched except for the scars we’d left behind during the recovery. Now the brilliant sunshine had softened the upper layer into coarse, granular crystals that sparkled like thousands of tiny diamonds whenever they caught the light.

Around every dark boulder and rocky outcrop the snow had begun retreating, exposing patches of black basalt warmed by the sun. Thin rivulets of meltwater trickled quietly downhill, disappearing beneath the remaining snow before reappearing further below as tiny silver threads weaving across the slope.

The mountains were slowly reclaiming what little evidence we’d left behind. Our boot prints had already lost their sharp edges, the melting snow rounding them off until they looked days older than they really were. Here and there a shallow depression marked where wreckage had lain before being airlifted away, each one slowly filling with clear meltwater that reflected the blue sky above.

Only the cliff remained unchanged. It towered above us in silent indifference, its dark basalt face rising almost vertically for another eighty metres before disappearing over the skyline. Looking up from where Misty rested on the small natural shelf we’d found, it was impossible not to imagine the violence that had unfolded there. The rock bore fresh scars where aluminium had gouged into the stone, pale grey streaks interrupting millions of years of weathered black rock. Nature would erase those too, eventually, but not today.

The wind was still almost absent. Only every now and then a gentle breath drifted down from the summit, cool enough to remind us that winter still ruled the higher reaches. It carried with it that unmistakable alpine scent of snow, cold rock and clean air that no valley ever seems able to reproduce. Every few minutes the breeze lingered a little longer than before, fluttering the loose ends of my jacket before slipping away again.

I glanced at the small windsock I’d secured to one of Misty’s tie-down rings. It barely stirred. Not yet.

But the mountains were beginning to breathe. By mid-afternoon the sun would warm the valleys enough for the familiar anabatic winds to start climbing the slopes, and those gentle whispers would become a steady upslope breeze. It was one more reminder that in the Drakensberg, the weather was never truly standing still. It was always changing, sometimes so slowly you hardly noticed, and sometimes quickly enough to catch even experienced pilots by surprise.

For now, though, the mountain had granted us a brief window of perfect flying weather.

Below me, Ruan and his technicians spread out across the slope in a slow, methodical line, each sweep of the metal detector passing over snow that glittered innocently in the sunshine.

One last search. One last chance to ask the mountain if it still had anything left to tell us.

We spent an hour and forty minutes on the slope. Ruan and his technical team swept the area with their metal detector and found only one bolt that was snapped in half. The bottom half was missing.

“Could be from an engine mounting, wing-spar retainer, or any of the three quarters of a million bolts used anywhere on the airframe...” Megan observed after she had turned the bolt around a few times in her hands.

“If it came from the King Air itself...” I replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at the top part of the thread, it is a little rusted. Besides, stainless steel doesn’t rust in three days. That bolt has been around here for a while longer,” I replied.

“So, where do you suppose it came from?”

“A high-altitude Boeing or Airbus going over ... They lose parts real often. And that is not front page news. The public never hears of those little mishaps.”

“Like that B737 that lost an engine on takeoff from Cape Town International?” Megan asked as she looked closer at the bolt.

“Yip, it just fell off the wing,” I elaborated. “The bolt holding the mount at the back was sheared off, causing the engine on full thrust to try and fly away from the aircraft. It pushed the engine forwards and over the leading edge of the wing before it just snapped the front bolt and dropped onto the runway. It was found that the back bolt was gone a few days and that the engine was just hanging on by the front bolt, until...”

“ ... until metal fatigue took out the front bolt...” Megan completed my sentence.

“Precisely,” I replied.

“Well, we can’t eliminate this bolt. We need to check everywhere on the King Air airframe this type and size of bolt is used, and if any similar bolt is missing.”

“Happy hunting, Doctor,” I chuckled.

“It’s the structural engineer’s job,” Megan said and looked up at the cliff face. “How much longer is Ruan going to scan this slope?”

“I think they are getting ready to go back. Look...” I said and pointed to Ruan talking to his techs and indicating towards the helicopter.

“About time...” Megan replied. “I have a hunch that Doctor Linda Roux will be coming in this afternoon or early evening.”

“And you want to be there when she does arrive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, here come our treasure hunters...” I said. “Let’s get Misty ready for the return flight.”

Back at base.

By the time we crossed the perimeter fence and flared over the apron, the afternoon sun had already begun its slow descent towards the western ridges. Long golden shadows stretched across the grass strips and taxiways, turning the entire airfield amber. The surrounding peaks had taken on that warm honey-coloured glow that only lasts for a few minutes before dusk steals it away.

I eased Misty into a hover over her parking spot, settled her gently onto the concrete and slowly lowered the collective until the skids kissed the apron.

Another good day’s flying.

I let the turbine idle while the temperatures stabilised, watching the gauges one final time before rolling the throttle smoothly back to cut-off, and pressed the cut-off throttle release. Then opened the fuel valve cover and closed the fuel valve switch, replacing the red coloured plastic cover.

The familiar whistle of the Rolls-Royce Allison 250 wound itself down through a descending note until it faded into silence. For a few moments afterwards the helicopter seemed almost reluctant to admit the flight was over. Heat radiated from the engine compartment, and the metal began talking to itself.

The tiny metallic clicks echoed softly through the quiet afternoon as the exhaust and turbine casing contracted in the cool mountain air.

Beside me Megan unclipped her headset and smiled. “Cold and Dark.”

I glanced across at her. “Cold and Dark,” I confirmed. “Another successful flight.”

She seemed pleased she’d remembered. It was a small thing, but I’d discovered that Megan quietly celebrated small victories. She never made a fuss. She simply filed them away somewhere behind those intelligent grey-blue eyes.

We climbed out and stepped onto the apron. Ruan gathered his technicians with the efficiency I’d come to expect from him.

“We’ll log the bolt into the evidence register before anybody loses it,” he announced, holding up the small fractured piece of steel inside its evidence bag.

“That little fellow,” I said, “might eventually tell us more than half the aircraft.”

Ruan nodded. “Funny how investigations work.” With that they disappeared into the hangar.

Megan remained exactly where she was. She could easily have followed them. Instead, she slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket and quietly fell into step beside me as I began the post-flight routine.