The following is a true story that took place in early 1979. The details provided are based on a “chit-chat” between Gabriel and his granddaughter Francesca during the Christmas Holidays of 2020.
First, there is some explanation. Airplanes, at that time, were not so expensive. Because what I am about to tell you happened 40, 45 years ago; a huge amount of time. And there was no insurance. What makes the airplane so expensive nowadays is the insurance. You can say that there is a 10x difference. The airplane will cost 50,000 at that time. Any airplane will cost 500,000 today. And there was financing for people who had farms. So I got a financing from Banco do Brasil. The plane cost nothing; it came brand new. And the gasoline was so inexpensive that it was like putting gas in your tank. It is the money I have in my pocket; it is not a big deal. Nowadays it is a big deal; at that time, it was not.
The airplane was the beginner’s airplane. The wheels came down in a way that you would call ‘retractable.’ It was a single engine Piper Arrow Retractable.
Gabriel and his plane
Let the adventures begin….
And at that time, all over South America, there was no electronic help. Because airplanes these days fly with all kind of electronic help. And at that time, there was nothing. The only thing that happened, the radio station that plays music emits a signal and you have something inside your airplane called ADF – Automatic Direction Finder—that you synchronize with the radio and the place you are going. So, you have the signal. But that is just in Sao Paulo, where you have plenty of people. Cause when you start going North, there was nothing. And so the airplane had four hours of flying time; five hours of gas in the tank. And that means I had 50 minutes to an hour to land the airplane after the four hours.
The trip
I took the trip for fun. I was around 35 and had sold the retail company that I worked on since I was 18 years old. And I didn’t have anything to do. So I learned to fly 40 hours of lessons and then I bought an airplane and decided to go the United States.
I took the trip for fun. I was around 35 and had sold the retail company that I worked on since I was 18 years old. And I didn’t have anything to do. So I learned to fly 40 hours of lessons and then I bought an airplane and decided to go the United States. The kids were very small, they stayed with my mother. And my father was so sure I was going to die that he said to me, “Each time you land, send me where you are so I can take the bodies home.”
So Ana Maria and I flew just four hours each day. And we generally flew in the morning. Because, over the tropics, over the equator, it rains every day. So if we don’t fly in the morning, we get clouds, clouds, clouds, and rain all through the afternoon. And for airplanes, there are two categories of pilot license. Visual, you see what you are doing, it’s called Visual Flight Rules—VFR. And there is an instrument one, it is called IFR—Instrument Flight Rules. So my license was for visual, but I would run into trouble when I was flying in the middle of the clouds.
“I knew everything for my small airplane. And I was really up-to-date with everything that concerns me.”
BELEM - AND RAIN
So, I am going north. And I am going to the top of Brazil, a city called Belém. When I arrive in Belém, the guy in the radio asked me, “Over what river you are?” And I cannot believe. There are so many rivers. It is the mouth of the Amazon. I call back, “I don’t know, I see plenty of water here.” So, I stayed in Belém that night, and the next day was the start of the adventure.
I hang out in the airport with all the pilots that have done that and so I knew all the tricks. I knew everything for my small airplane. And I was really up-to-date with everything that concerns me. So I had heard that when hell breaks loose like when you hear rain, rain, rain, if you can go down, you will survive. Because in the clouds there are winds moving in different directions up and down that can snap your airplane. So, you would get lower, hoping there were no mountains.
NorthEastern Brazil. Amazon River Basin.
So, we are leaving Belém to go to the next city, which was Cayenne, French Guiana. And it is incredible the size of the mouth of the Amazon river. We flew one hour over the mouth of the river to cross to the other side. One hour. There is so much water coming from the river, that you can see the river water going into the ocean for 200 kilometers. 100 miles or so. And the water doesn’t mix. Because in the Amazon, there is a black river (called the “NEGRO”) and muddy river (called the “MADEIRA”) and the rivers come together and don’t mix for some time. They run alongside each other. It becomes one river, but the waters only mix some miles further down. The NEGRO river is black because of the foliage and the altitude. While the MADEIRA river has plenty of mosquitoes and malaria and fish really big, the NEGRO river has no mosquitoes so no fish.
So, when we leave Belém and start flying, we see a black wall of rain in front of us. Suddenly it became so dark, so dark, so dark, that there were clouds surrounding us. I called on the radio to a nearby plane, the other guy who is also flying around there was a much bigger plane than me with two engines and I ask him, ‘How are you doing that? what are you doing there?” and he says, “Oh, I am over the rain. I don’t feel anything.” And he asks me, “And you. Who are you? What size is your airplane?” “The minimal. Piper Arrow.” And the guy said, “Oh shit.”
So, I was going that direction and there was a tower with a signal. This was 40 years ago, and I still remember the name of the tower: Ponta do Ceu
I was going that direction and there was a tower with a signal. This was 40 years ago, and I still remember the name of the tower: Ponta do Ceu
And so I entered the black stuff, but went down, down, down under the clouds and thankfully I was over Marajo Island, and there were no mountains. And then the sound of the rain falling on your windshield is incredible “pow pow” and I said oooh nooo. And that was my first day. Then after 40 minutes going through the rain, I was on the other side and right in front of me was the tower. I was in the right direction.
So it was the first time I was going out of the country and you need to tell the authorities that you are leaving, and you need to talk with the next guy and tell him you are arriving. And I was very confused with that situation. The guy would talk to me in French – that I talk and understand - and I would talk to him in English. It was very funny, this black French guy said “ici Rochambeau.” (name of the airport in Cayenne)”. So in the middle of that confusion, I forgot there was a lever you change gasoline tank, and I forgot to change. And suddenly there was this huge silence. You cannot imagine this silence. And it was because I forgot to switch the gas tank. But as I told you, I did my homework, and I knew what to do. I put the pump up, changed with another tank, and after 10 seconds, the engine came on again.
End of the first day in French Guyana. The airport is known as Rochambeau. France gave money to those guys and everything is very clean. The butter is French butter—everything is very clean. But I need to go back a little bit and tell you what I did preparing for this flight.
Learning to Fly - Porto Alegre
I hired a pilot to fly with me, but the guy was young and although he flew commercial airplanes, he was not good—he was afraid of everything! So one day I went to the south of Brazil, Porto Alegre, the last state down there near Uruguay. And I was flying into small airports and in the small airports they did not have electronic signal. And this one in Porto Alegre is a commercial airport with instrumental landing; there is an electronic ramp that tells you what to do. But I had never flown an electronic landing and the tower was in my ear telling me “do this, do that, turn here, down here,” and when I was doing what he was telling me, this crazy sound started inside my airplane, beeeeeppp, and I thought to myself, “this is it. I’m gonna die. I’m dying.” But what I didn’t know was that there are markers that say where you are in the landing head and that sound just meant I was flying over the middle marker. So it was my first big scare, but everything was fine.
Learning to Fly - Over the Jungle
So then I decided to go to the Amazon and Ana Maria asked me, “What are you more afraid of, flying over the jungle or flying over the ocean?” I flew 4 hours over the jungle, no houses, nothing, and I flew 4 hours over water to the Caribbean. And at that time, I thought that it was more comfortable flying over water because the trees in the Amazon are very high and close to each other. So if you fall down there, nobody finds you anymore.
I had a friend who was a pilot, and his father was a congressman and he fell down the Amazon once and his plane stood 40 meters high in the top of the tree. And the problem was how to get down. Because 40 meters is 10 stories, 12 stories high. Big trouble the guy getting out of there. But then I need to fly from Manaus, a city at the edge of the Amazon river where two bodies of water get together. And from this Manaus to where I was going, Boa Vista, was a 4-hour flight over jungle. It was like using a trapeze. Because the signal you are using for one city goes for 20 minutes and the next signal will be 3 and a half hours later. So you jump and try to grab the next signal.
And another very famous rule of pilots that fly in places like that: you’ve got the direction you want to go, you have the watch, and you have made calculations so if after the time you set, the city does not appear, you turn back. That is rule number one because you don’t die doing that.
So I flew to that city and the next morning we are going to visit a place where they dig for gold. They take the stones out of the bottom of the river and put them in a pan—pan handling. So I went there. But at this time, Ana Maria and I weren’t together. And I don’t remember if this time my pilot guy was with me or not. I think I was alone. So I landed where they are digging for gold and the guy, the owner of the location, was from my mother’s state: Minas Gerais. And he was so happy to see someone from his state that he made me eat breakfast with him there. And I have a very bad stomach, I cannot eat anything. Like Cesca, I cannot eat anything out of my regulation. But I ate, there you need to eat, I ate eggs.
And then he opened a medicine tube and turned out a huge amount of gold. Then he got another tube open and diamonds. And then, in front of the house there was a soccer field, and people were there playing soccer. Everybody had a gun in their belt. So when bumping the other they said, ‘sorry, sorry.’ So he asked me something, “oh my big friend is moving the cattle from here to there, and he needs salt. Can you fly there and give him the salt?” Salt is the worst for airplanes because it erodes everything. So I told him, “I don’t think I have gas, let me check.” So I went to the airplane, sit down, put on, and, pow, full. And then turned back and said, “No, I don’t have gas.”
In those places, it is very dangerous to disagree with the guy in the floor. Because they shoot you. I had two cousins who died on account of that. They were opening farms – put the tress down and plant grass - and everyone is gun happy, and the guy was having an affair with the daughter of the tractor guy and he decided to fire the guy. When their plane took off, ‘pow, pow, pow’ and I had the other cousin where it was the same. But there was not a woman in the middle, at that time, there was just the amount to pay. “You put so much down; you need to pay this.” “No, I put so much more and”—pow pow pow.
So I went back to my city, Boa Vista. This place where I went to see gold is where Brazil meets Venezuela—Angel Falls. It is the highest waterfall in the world. A very pretty country because everything is flat and then there is this straight mountain.
Angel Falls, Venezuela
But I didn’t go to see the falls, so I turned back to town. Back in Boa Vista, I found another guy from my mother’s state and he had a taxi company. And he bothered me a lot saying, “you like to fly high. No here in this place you need to fly low, so you can see the roads, and if anything happens, you have a road there.” So I had the bad idea to follow him.
The next morning, I went to the airport when the sun started to go up and I took off to Manaus. And after half an hour there were some clouds in front of me. Good clouds, white clouds, no big deal, but clouds. So when I entered the clouds, one minute after I got out, I looked down and there was no road. Just jungle jungle jungle. And that is the time you die. If you try to find the road, you die. So what I had in my mind was to turn back, you are going straight back, 180 degrees. I landed in my primitive airport at 7 or 8 in the morning, and said “No, I’m going to sleep here and the next morning I will fly.” So the next morning I took off and went higher than I could because that was the way I liked to fly. First, if you make mistakes, you have time to correct. Second, you can get the signal from the radio better when you are higher.
Do the trapeze jump over jungle and I got to the big city—Manaus, on the side of the Amazon river. And this road from Manaus to Boa Vista there was a competition, the guys were driving from the tip of South America—Tierra del Fuego—to Alaska. And when they passed on this road here, this road that just opened was full of wild Indians so the army put soldiers on the side of the road so the cars could pass there. And I was flying over that road. It was the most amazing thing to see the forest for hours.
GUYANAS
I am in the top of South America—the Guyana (Georgetown)—there are three: French, English, and Dutch. There was this black pastor once in English Guyana, Georgetown, that convinced people that they should die on the same day—80 people to commit suicide.
It was when I was near Paramaribo (Dutch Guyana – also known as Suriname) that I had my second big scare. So I thought that I could go to the end of one gas tank and switch to the other gas tank – so I could fly further. The next time it was time to switch gas tanks I waited until the tank ran out and the engine stopped, flipped the switch to change the tank, and turned the pump on. But this time the engine did not turn on immediately. I gave a look at the altimeter and it was going down like crazy. But I liked to fly high (10,000 feet) and the crash was avoided. After 30 seconds the engines started. I never tried that trick again!
Guyanas: French, English, and Dutch
Puerto Rico and the US
Then the trip continued. I got to Puerto Rico—nice place, everything is good. Then I needed to do a big jump over the water. And there is bad weather, and stood one day there, second day there, I went meteorological service and asked how it was and they said, “Oh bad, its bad, and raining.” But Saturday I was fed up and wanted to go, so I decided to go.
So from Puerto Rico, you fly to a deactivated US air force base in the middle of the ocean. And 4 hours, my limit, that was one of the worst parts of my trip. And it started raining so I went up up up to my limit which was 10,000 ft. Because you can fly at that altitude without oxygen. If you stay too much there, you lack oxygen turning you tipsy and then …
Puerto Rico and nearby islands
So when I finally got over to the place I wanted to go, there was this big confusion over the radio. Everyone was screaming, everybody talking. And you are over the clouds, there is rain down there, and you are kind of scared. So I asked the very British guy talking, black guy, “Control, what’s happening? This guy is screaming like crazy.” “Oh, don’t bother, these are two Venezuelans who went to the US to ferry planes to Venezuela, and one was a student, and the other was an instructor in two airplanes. And they are already on the ground, but the student is so shaken that he is holding the microphone on his hand screaming.”
Turks & Caicos
Getting out of a tight spot
So, the guy told me. He knows that I am in trouble by my voice. He said, “Follow my instructions and I will put you down here. Do everything I tell you.” “Yes, okay, I’ll do everything.” So I started going down in the middle of the clouds (IFR situation) raining, raining, raining, and you try to make a spiral, over this point. So I was going down, and there was this lady on the radio, a commercial pilot, and she had a very professional accent and words, saying, “Tower, what’s your situation there? What’s your visibility?” And he said, “Oh my lady, it’s like shit. I cannot see anything.” And I am going down, down, down. It is pouring rain.
This is an island close to the military base called Turks and Caicos. Nowadays it is very famous, at that time there was nothing there. When I put my belly over water the guy said, “Put 70 degrees in your compass and you will get here.” The airplane had 2 compasses—one magnetic and one electronic—and they were not matching. One was broken and I didn’t know which one was broken. So when I got there, I went 70 degrees on the one that was broke—the digital—and it pointed out to nowhere in the water. So we saw an island and Ana Maria said, “Land here, land here.’ And I said, “I can’t, it’s too short.” And she yelled, “Land here!”
So I landed there. It was a salt mine. And remember that I was in the end of my four-hour gas tank. And a huge amount of black kids came running in my direction. I told the guys, “I want to go to Turks and Caicos” “It’s very close, in that direction” So it was raining, and that place didn’t have anything. I asked Ana Maria, “Should we go?” “Oh, yes, we should go.” “What direction?” I asked the kids. “Are you sure” “yes we live here, go in that direction.”
So we took off in that direction.
When we are going to land, the water is so clear, so beautiful, but there was an airplane crashed in the beginning of the runway. It was the only time that Ana Maria panicked. She got the mic and started speaking with the tower, “There is an airplane here, and airplane crash here! What should we do?” And the guy said, “Don’t worry, this guy is underwater. 10 meters down, he crashed 5 years ago.” It was so clear in the water you could see it and mistake it for the ground. When the airplane was on the ground, there was a place to park, and I ran out of gas. I just had gas to go to parking.
Everything was very poor at that time and there was a stall that sold sandwiches. A shack. Ana Maria said to them, “Do you have anything to eat? We are very hungry.” And he said to her, “Sorry lady, we’re all out of food. All we have are lobster sandwiches.” We ate lobster. And then I went to the tower to talk with my savior. Then I saw the guy, very black guy, and I said to him, “Thank you, thank you, you saved my life.” And he said to me, “I know.”
So we went to hotel, very humble place, had dinner, and there were a bunch of pilots there. Everyone was seated in the terrace and everyone was telling stories. We don’t know if it was true or not, but everybody had flown under a bridge. And I hadn’t, and that made me very pissed off. But in Brazil, they put a steel wire from one side to another of the rivers, but you don’t see from the airplane. And there are plenty of true stories where people flying over the river to scare the cows and they bump against the wire and died. So I didn’t fly under bridges.
All these pilots were from the States. And there was a nurse who had a twin engine airplane with her salary, can you imagine? Everything was so cheap at that time.
So finally, the last place before Miami were the Bahamas. And I was going to land there and didn’t know they had two airports. One was deactivated. So I got near the tip of the island where the old airport was and said, “Control, I am ready to land. I am in the final approach.” And I didn’t find the airport after 10 or 15 minutes finally found it, plenty of traffic. And when I find the airport, I did a steep turn to land. And the guy on the radio said coyly, “A rather close landing, sir. A rather final approach, sir.” There were 3 jets waiting for me to land.
Another funny story in Puerto Rico. We were going to take off with very sophisticated everything, and Ana Maria forgot to close the door. So we took off and I heard that noise, the door was open. And Ana Maria had this brilliant idea, “I read instructions in the book that if you turn to my side, the door will close.” “No way, I’m going to throw you out!” So I did something that you could lose your license. I called an emergency. Called the tower, “I need to land, I need to land, I’m having trouble here.” Then I could not just close the door and go right back up because the guy would figure out. So I stood there for half an hour before going up again.
My plane call sign is Papa-Tango-November-November-Romeo. PT-NNR. PT (or PP) is the initial letters of any Brazilian airplane. So when the towers in the US hear the Brazilian sign, they are already scared, “Trouble’s coming, trouble’s coming.” There is a very famous story. A big construction company in Brazil bought an airplane from the States and sent a guy up to get it and bring it back. But he didn’t speak English. He could fly very, very well in Brazil, but not in Miami. So he started the airplane, “Tower, I’m ready for takeoff.” And the tower said, “Okay, stand-by.” And he said, “Okay, bye-bye.” And went off. Miami sent two jets after him, put him in jail, and had him pay a huge fine.
So I finally get to Miami. And I want to fix my compass. There are 10-15 airports in Miami and the airport I landed was not MIA – it was Opa Locka airport. And the place I landed didn’t have a shop to fix my compass. The guy told me “It’s one block away. Go up and land in Fort Lauderdale” But I didn’t know that Fort Lauderdale International has as much traffic as Miami International. For me, I thought it was small.
So I took off and was going to land but there were a thousand guys talking in the radio, and they did not stop, and the accents were different. It was not Americans talking, it was foreigners talking. And finally I was able to cut through the noise and get their attention. And the tower said, “Who is this crazy guy screaming in my ear?” “It’s me, it’s me! PT-NNR!” “What you want to do?” “I want to land!”
But at that time, I was flying away from the airport. And the tower said, “where are you?” He needs to know my numbers. I said, “I am over a golf course.” “You are crazy, we have six golf courses. Which one?” So I had a bad idea—I turned back. I didn’t know there were a huge amount of people landing and the tower starts screaming, “Ahh what are you doing? Turn back and land!” So I turned back to land and heard him talking on the radio. There was a big jumbo jet behind me. And he said, “Air France, do you see the guy in front of you?” “Oh yes, I see” But he didn’t see me. Because when the jumbo jet lands he is pointed to the stars, not me. “Pay attention, there is a small guy in front of you. Don’t bump him out.” “Okay, okay, I’ll do.” So the tower said to me, “there is a heavy behind you. When you put the wheels on the ground, turn left at the first opportunity you have.” So I did it, I turned left quick and just as I did, the big plane passed me.
I was so scared with everything that I went 15 days without seeing my airplane. It was an incredible trip. On the way back it was normal. You learn.
The Way Back
There are two stories on the way back that I remember well. They both happened in the same day.
I was going to land in Sta Lucia Island. But when I called the Sta Lucia tower, they said “You can’t”. Today is our Independence! (Feb 22, 1979 was the island’s independence from England – they day I wanted to land there.) So I decided to fly around the island. It was only a 20-minute flight, but I remember it well. It was a stormy day, and the ocean was hitting the rocks on the coast. There were no beaches – kind of scary!
Sta Lucia Island and nearby islands
Since we could not land in Sta Lucia, we headed to Grenada which was nearby. There was a commercial plane landing when I was landing in Grenada. The guy on the radio started screaming. And for a moment, you don’t understand what the guy is saying. This British guy yells, ‘Shoot up, shoot up, shoot up!’ Then I woke up and saw—the big airplane was getting out of the runway, but the tail was still in the middle of the runway, if I continued, I bump into the guy. So I shot up, flew around and landed.
Follow the trip in Google Maps
Click the link below to launch a custom Google Maps with the trip locations.