Rough landing for pioneering fighter pilot

A Botswana Defence Force (BDF) aircraft flew low and mistakenly touched down at a landing strip in Nswazwi, a village in Zimbabwe, near the Botswana border. This was pre-independence Zimbabwe, during a period of hostilities when some parts of Botswana, particularly along the border, were under siege from the Rhodesian forces. The plane could have been blown into pieces or the pilot captured as a prisoner of war.  A group of Rhodesian police officers began advancing on the plane, having noticed it was not one of theirs. In the twinkling of an eye, the plane was airborne and both the pilot and the aircraft were safe.

Colonel Jagamang Seduke, one of Botswana’s first four fighter pilots, was in the cockpit, and was to survive several other attacks as he diligently navigated the skies during a volatile period, just before Zimbabwe’s independence in the late 1970s.