Plane Down in Africa: Search Party Lost

Summary

Real Survival Stories: "Plane Down in Africa: Search Party Lost"

Hosted by John Hopkins | Release Date: July 9, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Real Survival Stories, hosted by John Hopkins, listeners are transported to the rugged Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa. The story revolves around 35-year-old farmer John Moore and his friend Mark Freeman, whose quest to recover stolen cattle leads to a harrowing plane crash and a desperate fight for survival.

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Background: The Struggle Against Stock Theft

John Moore, a seasoned farmer with two years of military experience, has been battling the rampant issue of cattle theft that plagues his family's farm in South Africa's Natal Province. The theft is driven by both poverty and greed, with organized gangs employing violent tactics to steal and slaughter cattle for financial gain.

Mark Freeman [07:03]: "The scourge of stock theft back then just became rampant... It became incredibly debilitating for us because the pressure was relentless."

To protect their livelihood, John and his fellow farmers have invested heavily in armed guards and have even engaged in gunfights with rustlers, narrowly escaping injury on multiple occasions.

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The Fateful Decision: Aerial Reconnaissance

Determined to gain an upper hand, John decides to charter a small two-seater Piper Cherokee 140 plane, owned by his uncle Hilton, to conduct a reconnaissance mission over the Drakensberg Mountains. Mark Freeman, a newly qualified pilot and John’s close friend, agrees to assist.

Mark Freeman [04:57]: "People might say I'm a risk taker. I don't think I am. It is a mistake... We are flying in what was no better than a sardine tin."

Despite initial reluctance due to poor phone battery life and minimal signal reception, John takes his wife Galene's advice to bring his almost indestructible Nokia 3110, hoping it might prove useful in an emergency.

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Takeoff and Descent into Disaster

On the morning of April 5, 2002, under clear skies and favorable weather conditions, John and Mark take off smoothly from a small municipal airfield. Excited about the perfect day for their mission, they fly low over familiar terrain, scanning for any signs of the missing cattle.

Mark Freeman [17:15]: "We flew very close to and almost over the house... We proceeded to fly in there with absolutely no trepidation."

However, an unforeseen cold front rapidly approaches, bringing with it a powerful downdraft that causes the plane's engine to stall. Within moments, the aircraft begins to descend uncontrollably.

John Moore [19:57]: "We were falling. Unable to generate enough lift... we were just not flying anymore."

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The Crash: A Race Against Time

With seconds ticking away, Mark attempts an emergency landing on a narrow, rocky plateau. The plane skims over a sheer cliff, losing its landing gear and propeller before crashing onto a grassy slope.

Mark Freeman [22:35]: "There’s no doubt in my mind this was it... I just remember being enveloped in this big blue or green light."

Miraculously, both men survive the crash with minor injuries. However, they are now faced with the immediate dangers of fuel leakage, potential fire, and Mark's severe neck injury.

John Moore [26:27]: "Cautiously, John reaches behind him, groping for something in the back of the cockpit... He pulls it through the gap between the seats, wraps it tightly around his neck."

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Immediate Survival Efforts

Realizing the imminent threat of fire, John quickly moves to deactivate the engine while Mark grapples with his neck injury. They also encounter a deadly African puff adder near the wreckage, which John promptly removes to prevent further danger.

Mark Freeman [29:49]: "Lo and behold, as I settle Mark down on this rock... a big African puff adder coiled up just on the side."

Despite mounting injuries and the escalating danger from the fuel, John prioritizes his friend’s well-being and begins devising a plan to summon help.

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Summoning Help: The Desperate Call for Rescue

With the plane incapacitated, John attempts to use the onboard radio to call for help but is met with static. Recalling the Nokia phone, now with a single bar of charge, he endeavors to find a signal.

John Moore [33:46]: "But all that meets his plea is a fizz of white noise... I thought, look, that's just going to be a waste of time."

After considerable effort, Mark manages to get a weak signal and contacts their uncle Hilton, who confirms they are understood and that a rescue helicopter is en route. However, Mark's condition deteriorates rapidly as they await help.

Mark Freeman [37:14]: "He was in a significant amount of pain... I just don't know what was going to transpire."

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Rescue: A Miraculous Turn of Events

After enduring hours in the scorching sun with limited resources, John and Mark witness a rescue helicopter fly by without spotting them. Desperate, John uses a small heliograph—a signaling mirror salvaged from the wreck—to reflect sunlight in an attempt to attract attention.

Mark Freeman [42:08]: "I took the little shiny mirror and... sat there with the determination of knowing that if I stayed long enough, they would see it."

Their persistence pays off when the helicopter detects the flashes from the heliograph and descends to their location. Medical personnel swiftly attend to their injuries, and both men are airlifted to safety.

John Moore [43:30]: "The helicopter comes right to our feet. A medic jumps down and begins tending to Mark's injuries."

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Aftermath: Reflecting on Survival and Resilience

Upon reaching the hospital, Mark suffers severe facial fractures but eventually makes a full recovery. John, with only whiplash, is discharged the same day. The ordeal profoundly impacts both men, reinforcing their resilience and the profound value of quick, decisive action in life-threatening situations.

Mark Freeman [45:02]: "It was a miracle. It was a miraculous event. And then beyond that, we saved ourselves."

Despite their survival, the relentless issue of stock theft eventually drives John and his family to relocate from South Africa to Australia in 2015, seeking a safer and more secure life.

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Conclusion: Lessons in Survival and Adaptation

"Plane Down in Africa: Search Party Lost" is a testament to human endurance and the critical importance of preparedness and teamwork in survival scenarios. John and Mark's experience underscores the thin line between life and death and highlights the remarkable capacity of ordinary individuals to navigate extraordinary challenges.

Mark Freeman [48:14]: "They forged who we are. And as I've got older, I've realized that, yeah, it’s shaped us certainly molded who we were, who I am... we saved ourselves."

As the episode concludes, listeners are left with a profound appreciation for the fragility of life and the indomitable spirit required to overcome unforeseen disasters.

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Stay tuned for the next episode of Real Survival Stories where diver Martin Robson faces unimaginable challenges in the depths of Blue Lake, Russia.

Transcript

[John Moore]

This episode is brought to you by San Pellegrino Ciao. A new kind of flavor. Sparkling water, the kind made with real fruit juice, a pinch of Sicilian salt and the sparkle of the Italian sun with no added sugar and just 10 or less calories per can. Enjoy with love from Italy by San Pellegrino ciao. Now it's April 5, 2002, in the mighty Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa's Natal Province. It's a sprawling escarpment 2000 meters above sea level, a network of giant jutting rock formations surrounding a patchwork of lush green valleys. The area takes its name from the Dutch Drakensbergen, literally Dragon Mountains, and there is something magical, even sublime about the place. But on this particular Friday morning, 35 year old farmer John Moore is in no mood to appreciate the view. He is dragging his friend Mark Freeman along the rough ground of one of the valleys. John is sweating, panting as he heaves Mark's limp frame, glancing back only occasionally to see how much distance he has put between them and the dangerous spot they were just in. They're still not safe. There is an acrid scent of smoke in the air. Mark is conscious, but barely. His face is a bloodied mess caused by the injuries he sustained just moments ago. John himself has a shooting pain in his neck, but he pushes on, hauling his friend towards a stony outcrop. There is a large sloping rock here, a poor excuse for a hospital bed, but it'll have to do. As he sets his friend down, John's eye is caught by something nearby. He and Mark are not alone. Coiled up on the rock just feet away from them is an African puff adder, a meter long and as fat as John's bicep. As a farmer, John knows a dangerous snake when he sees one, and the puff adder is one of the deadliest. It can strike at lightning speed, too quick for the human eye to see it coming. And the serpent's venom is extremely fast working, leading to hemorrhage within a matter of hours. Untreated, the chances of survival are less than 50 50.

[Mark Freeman]

Puff adders are incredibly toxic. Doesn't take long. They attack your flesh and your vital organs in a very quick manner. If one of us had been hit by that guy, it would have been all over.

[John Moore]

John fixes his eyes on the puff adder, taking in its elegant black and yellow stripes. For a moment, the two of them seem to be looking into each other's eyes. The only question is, who will strike first? Suddenly, John grabs the snake by its tail and hurls it into the long grass. It slides away. He blows his cheeks, relieved. But getting rid of the snake is just the beginning. He's got far bigger problems to deal with right now.

[Mark Freeman]

I had to make really good decisions really quickly. We now needed to really spring into action to start or create some kind of rescue plan. I knew for sure that we couldn't walk out. We were miles and miles away from anywhere. So I knew I had to do something.

[John Moore]

Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to REAL SURVIVAL stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet John Moore out in the rural expanse of South Africa. It's a tough life for a farmer. John has spent years battling thieves who pilfer his livestock. One day he takes a bold step, chartering a plane to search for some missing cattle in the Drakensberg Mountains. He hopes it'll give him the upper hand, but in the end, everything comes crashing down.

[Mark Freeman]

People might say I'm a risk taker. I don't think I am. It is a mistake. And in hindsight, it was a mistake to fly in the mountains in a small plane. We are flying in what was no better than a sardine tin when he.

[John Moore]

And his companion Mark find themselves stranded and hurt somewhere in the huge range. The focus of John's mission will switch from recovery to rescue. I'm John Hopkins from the Noisy Podcast Network. This is Real Survival stories. It's early April 2002. John Moore wakes in his bed at his family's main farm, rubbing his eyes and yawning deeply. The first rays of dawn are just beginning to pierce the horizon. His wife, Galene, rolls over and goes back to sleep. But as a farmer, John is used to early mornings. He gets up, pours himself a cup of coffee, goes outside to inspect his cattle. The sun dried grassy plains fan out before him, golden runways pointing towards distant mountains. The Drakensberg range is about 50 km away, towards the border with Lesotho. The farmer strides over to a metal gate and opens it before weaving his way through the animals as they grunt and swish, flies away with their tails and ears. John's family have been rearing cows in South Africa for six generations. They have a breeding herd of over a thousand, spread across a number of farms, around 8,000 hectares of land. But in recent years, keeping tabs on that much stock has become increasingly difficult.

[Mark Freeman]

The scourge of stock Theft back then just became rampant. It was driven by poverty in, you know, Africa is, is rife with poverty. And the district we lived in, the area we lived in was no exception to that. But there's also a very big portion of it driven by greed. So we had these gangs or teams, whatever you'd like to call them, of semi professional thieves, really, who would come into an area and either steal cattle, live and drive them off, or we'd have gangs or groups of people come and slaughter cattle on the farms and maim them by hacking their hamstrings, killing them, and then carrying off the meat or the loot and possibly selling it for financial gain, really. And it became a business. It became incredibly debilitating for us because it was just. The pressure was relentless. It just kept on and on and on.

[John Moore]

John and his fellow farmers have resorted to desperate measures to protect their cattle, spending thousands of South African rand on armed guards and even at times, joining the fight themselves.

[Mark Freeman]

The people stealing these cattle and the gangs who were involved, they were fully prepared to go all the way. And we had to match that. Unfortunately, we had got into gunfights before trying to protect our stock, which seems pretty crazy to the average man out there, but that's the level of confrontation we had. On two occasions, we met the full force of AK47 fire. On both those occasions, miraculously and luckily, no one was injured or killed.

[John Moore]

With two years in the military behind him, John isn't shy when it comes to confronting the cattle rustlers. But with such a sprawling farming operation, often the thieves are long gone before he even realizes they've struck. Typically, the first he knows about a raid is when a herdsman from one of his family's satellite farms calls to give him the bad news, which is exactly what happens on this April day in 2002.

[Mark Freeman]

On this occasion, he would have phoned me to say, look, the fences have been cut, cattle are missing, the count is wrong. This particular incident, I think we had 20 or 30 cows and their calves stolen. So, you know, back then, that is a significant amount of livestock and a significant amount of money.

[John Moore]

John's response to the herdsman's call is immediate. The farmers in the area have an unspoken rule. When a cattle theft occurs, you have to show you're doing your best to recover the animals, to send a message to the gangs that you aren't going to let them get away with it.

[Mark Freeman]

The farm work would come to a complete grinding halt. Muster every possible man, woman and child and all the vehicles and equipment we could and we'd do it on foot, on foot and on vehicle. But because of the remoteness of these areas, it became increasingly difficult and the stock theme thieves became increasingly wily to our attempts.

[John Moore]

John and the others set out to search for the cattle, trundling along dusty dirt roads until they reach the satellite farm up in the highlands. Here the search party splits up. Some take the roads, others go on foot, combing the sprawling savannah for any sign of the missing animals, any clue as to where they might have been taken. They talk to the local people for information. Some are more forthcoming than others. When it comes to the cattle gangs, fear and intimidation are rife. Eventually the search party is forced to concede defeat. For now at least, they're not going to find the cattle this way. The thieves have hidden them too well. But experience tells John the most likely place to look.

[Mark Freeman]

We would get information from the tribal authorities or the tribal people. Between where we live and the mountains is a big tribal area. And this is where the cattle were being taken into. 99% of the time they had sort of safe areas where the information didn't come from. And we knew really well if we went in there we were probably up for a fight.

[John Moore]

John has been swapping notes with his fellow farmers, in particular a friend called Mark Winter. Mark has a hunch that the missing animals are being held in the foothills of the Drakensberg. In fact, he tells John, they're almost certainly in one particular area, the valley where the wattle trees grow. John knows these mountains well. Decades earlier his dad helped carve out many of the original footpaths in the range. But trying to find the cattle on foot will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And vehicular access to the mountains is all but impossible. There's really only one way to proceed. That's from the fortunately, John's Uncle Hilton is part owner of a local plane, a small two seater Piper Cherokee 140 based at an airfield 20 minutes drive from the home farm. Its call sign is Echo Bravo Mike, known to the locals as ebm. It's a regular sight in these skies. John decides to ask Uncle Hilton if he can borrow the plane for a few hours for a reconnaissance mission up to the Drakensbergs.

[Mark Freeman]

I phoned my uncle that said, look, what are the chances of us getting a couple of hours up in the air? He said, look, I'm not available for whatever reason. But Mark Freeman, I'm sure he'd be love to add a few hours to.

[John Moore]

His logbook at just 19, Mark Freeman is a good 15 years John's junior. John's known him since he was a kid. But these days Mark is a newly qualified pilot and he's always keen to put in some extra flying time. They agree to meet at the airfield at 6am on April 5, an early start on what promises to be a bright, clear morning in the African savannah.

[Mark Freeman]

The weather forecast the previous evening, when we looked on the telly or the radio, it really gave us a great forecast. There was no wind or low wind. It was going to be a very calm day, bright sunshine. It was all stacking up to be a perfectly good day to fly an airplane. I had no misgivings about going up that day whatsoever.

[John Moore]

Just before he leaves home that morning, John's wife, Gailene, makes a suggestion. He's recently brought a Nokia 3110, an almost indestructible little black brick. Take it with you, galene tells him. But there is an issue.

[Mark Freeman]

I looked down at it and to my dismay, I saw one bar of power, one. One little bar of charge. And I'd forgotten about putting it on charge overnight. So my initial thought was, well, that's just going to be a waste of time. Why would I take that with me? So anyway, I remember clearly Gaylene, my wife, saying, know, take the phone, it might be useful. And I might have protested, once you got up into those areas, reception was going to be absolutely zero. Anyway, I put the trusty Nokia in my pocket, kissed her goodbye, gave the kids a hug and took off for the airfield.

[Narrator]

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[Mark Freeman]

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[Mark Freeman]

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[John Moore]

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[John Moore]

It's morning on the 5th of April 2002 at a small municipal airfield in the heart of South Africa. The sky is unblemished and the day's first sunbeams are already warming the tarmac, creating hazy waves of heat. A huge hangar door groans open and a little two seater plane taxis out onto the Runway, its young pilot Mark Freeman guiding the aircraft forwards. He stops at a fuel bowser to fill up the tank in the plane's wings. Sitting in the passenger seats inside the cramped cockpit, John Moore watches as 150 liters of petrol are guzzled up by the tiny craft. Enough to buy them a good four hours of flying time with a full tank. Mark taxes up to the Runway, performs his final safety checks, powers up the plane, releases the brakes. The little aircraft picks up speed, 30, 40, 50 miles an hour. As the end of the Runway approaches, John feels the front wheels lift off the ground and they soar into the brilliant blue sky.

[Mark Freeman]

We took off from the airfield at about 6, 6:30, turned to the west and we can fly relatively low. It would have been anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500ft above the ground. And we just followed the routes that I believed we would take to get to where Mark Winter, my farming friend had described would be a good place to start the search for his cattle. So we flew low. We flew very close to and almost over the house, my house. We had woken up that morning. We flew across the Wagon Drift dam, which is a beautiful big national dam, and then we followed the road, the gravel road up into the rural area. I still remember flying up there and Mark and I looking at each other and almost having a laugh about know just how perfect today was going to be for doing what we did. Because make no mistake, flying in these mountains in a Piper Cherokee140 is probably stupid, but young and brave, that wasn't really on the radar for us. And we proceeded to fly in there with absolutely no trepidation. You know, if it had been bumpy and windy and low visibility, I would have pulled the plug immediately. But there was, to the best of my knowledge, there was no reason we shouldn't be doing what we were doing on that morning.

[John Moore]

The plane cruises onwards smooth and level as the propeller on its nose hums. Before long, Mark and John are flying through a large valley. All around are soaring rock faces quilted with green. Ostensibly, things couldn't be better. All of John's focus is on his missing herd. His eyes dart this way and that, scanning relentlessly for any sign of the animals. But what the two men don't know is that a freak weather event is headed their way, totally invisible to the naked eye. It's a cold front coming all the way from Antarctica. A mass of falling air that will do its best to drag anything passing through it down to the ground. Suddenly, out of the blue, John sees a warning light flashing in the cockpit, followed by the piercing buzz of an alarm. He looks over at mark. The 19 year old's knuckles are turning white on the control yoke. In a second, everything has changed. Wide eyed, the youthful pilot turns to his passenger. We're not flying, he tells John, remaining as calm as possible. We're falling. Unable to generate enough lift, the plane's engine has stalled.

[Mark Freeman]

I think it's disbelief when we kind of looked at each other and I don't know if we had the conversation that maybe it's a fault, but very quickly we realized there was no fault about it because we were definitely going down, we weren't plummeting out of the sky, we were just not flying anymore. The forward speed of the plane wasn't creating enough lift over the wing. So even though we were making forward momentum, the plane was no longer flying as it's designed to do. And technically you are falling, so you're no longer flying and your control very quickly becomes an issue.

[John Moore]

Already swooping low, Mark has less than a minute to execute an emergency landing. But finding a spot to sit down in the Drakensbergs is virtually impossible.

[Mark Freeman]

We knew we were in huge trouble. The options were pretty much non existent because in front of us were just a series of walls of vertical rock faces with very small grass bands between them. I just said to Mark, pick a spot and make your best of it. Then we pretty much we were preparing for impact.

[John Moore]

Mark aims the plane at a raised sloping plateau. Rocky, grassy, uneven, narrow, but it's about as close to a landing strip as they're going to find out here. It should be long enough just about for the aircraft to come to a halt before crashing into a wall of rock at the far end. That's if they can make it onto the plateau to begin with. At the near side, it's perched on top of a sheer cliff of rock and the aircraft is losing altitude fast. As the rock wall gets closer and closer, John braces for impact, Pushing back hard into his seat. The plane clears the barrier just. But then there's a flurry of metallic cracks and crashes as the craft loses its landing gear and propelled propeller, stripped away as they skim over the edge. Moments later, the flimsy metal fuselage hits the ground. The little silver sardine tin careens through the scrubby grassland, spinning wildly through his side window. John watches dumbstruck as one of the wings breaks off and falls away. It is the longest few seconds of his life. And yet throughout it all, he feels strangely serene.

[Mark Freeman]

There's no doubt in my mind this was it, because the chances of landing and up there are so remote. I just remember being enveloped in this big blue or green light or aura or feel. Feeling about things. And I don't remember noise. I don't remember pain. I don't remember the. The impact as such. I just remember it all being over.

[John Moore]

It's seconds later. The flurry of bangs and rattles had reverberated around the hills, has disappeared now as John's senses slowly return to him. The main sound is that of his own breathing. The plane has come to a halt. They haven't been totally pulverized. Careening into a wall or plummeting to the ground. Somehow things have just about held together. John calms his breath and tries to make sense of his surroundings. He kicks out the door on his side of the cockpit, surprised to find that the fuselage is resting directly on the ground. No wheels and no propeller either.

[Mark Freeman]

Into this sort of disassociated state where I certainly did, where the reality of your situation, the miracle of not having died, because that's exactly what you expecting to have happened, kind of come back and you have to then work in the reality, I guess, of what's. What's around you. And Mark was slumped over the dash. I think he was probably unconscious at that stage. I kind of had to pinch myself to work out whether I was actually alive or I was dead. And from there I realized that, no, look, we. We have made it. We have survived. The plane has stopped. We found ourselves sitting on a grassy slope. So miraculously and with a lot of skill from Mark's flying ability, we had skimmed literally over the top of this sheer rock wall and landed on a grassy slope. That's how the mountains look. These vertical bands with some grass. So we literally smeared ourselves onto one of these grass bands. And now we're sitting there on the deck with no wheels, no propeller and one wing. This summer, try the new Strato Frappuccino.

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[John Moore]

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[Mark Freeman]

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[Narrator]

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[John Moore]

As he becomes more lucid, John is hit by an overpowering smell of petrol. The plane's fuel tank was in the wing that broke off. And now he, Mark and the whole of the fuselage are covered in the highly flammable liquid. Already there's smoke rising from the instrument panel in front of him. John reaches over and turns off the key in the ignition. But as he does so, he realizes there's something wrong with his neck. His head flops forward awkwardly. The muscles that normally hold it up have been torn. Whiplash.

[Mark Freeman]

I thought I might have had a broken neck at that stage because I literally had to hold my head up with my hands. I wasn't able to sit in the prone position. My neck was that damaged. I thought, okay, well, I've never had that before. So if I have got a broken neck, it's only seconds from disaster. One wrong move and this could all be over.

[John Moore]

Cautiously, John reaches behind him, groping for something in the back of the cockpit that might support his head. His fumbling hands alight on a red jacket. He pulls it through the gap between the seats, wraps it tightly around his neck. But as he ties the knot on his improvised brace, he feels a searing pain. Pain in one of his fingers. He looks down. It's bent at an impossible angle.

[Mark Freeman]

One of my fingers was facing backwards, so I must have put my hand on the dashboard, I think, as we came down and pushed a finger out of place.

[John Moore]

Barely missing a beat, John grabs the disjointed digit and yanks.

[Mark Freeman]

So I do remember pulling that back into the socket and, yeah, just getting on with it. I just knew that we had to get on with it because at that point I didn't know if Mark was critical or just knocked out.

[John Moore]

With his finger back in place, John tumbles out of the aircraft and onto the scorched grass. He makes his way around the front of the fuselage, past the spot where the propeller was ripped off the tip of the plane. He hauls open Mark's door, but as he goes to unclip his friend's seatbelt, he finds it's already been torn away from the chair by the force of the crash. Mark is still slumped forward over the dashboard. There's blood dripping from his mouth and nose, but at least he's still breathing. The biggest danger right now is what will happen if the fuel catches alight.

[Mark Freeman]

Having watched enough movies about planes going up in smoke, instinctively, I think it was just realized that we had to get the hell Away from this plane. I grabbed Mark and I proceeded to drag him and myself away from the plane, expecting it to go up in a ball of flames.

[John Moore]

John heaves his friend away from the smoldering wreck. Mark is semi conscious now, groaning in pain as John drags him roughly along the.

[Mark Freeman]

We are on a probably a 30 degree slope of grass. There was not far we could really go from the plane because of our environment. So I just remember pulling them away and they quite often are these open areas between the grass of a flat rocky area. We would have been 20, maybe 20 paces, 20 meters away from the plane where I thought if it goes up in smoke we are going to be okay.

[John Moore]

Doing all he can to keep his injured neck straight and steady, John inches his way towards the rocky surface. Dripping with sweat, he finally stops around 60ft from the spitting smoking aircraft. Hopefully that's far enough. But just as he solves one problem, another rears its ugly head.

[Mark Freeman]

Lo and behold, as I settle Mark down on this rock, which is probably 2 meters by 2 meters sort of in size, a bit of a flat sloping rock, there's a dirty big African puff adder coiled up just on the side in the grass. Puff adders are incredibly toxic snakes. This guy was about one and a half meters long.

[John Moore]

Suddenly John thrusts out his arm, grabbing the snake by the tail and hurling it into the long grass. It hastily slithers away. Another danger averted, John can at last turn to his companion and attempt to assess Mark's injuries. As the teenage pilot comes to. The pain is overwhelming.

[Mark Freeman]

You could see the injuries he had. Not that I knew what the internal ones were, but there was significant swelling to starting to appear around his eyes and his jaw. I just remember saying to Mark, look, you're not, you're not in any state to help us get out of here. The best thing you can do is just try and be still. So I knew I had to do something from that point it I really just went into rescue mode. What must I do to get the right message, the right people so that they can get us off here? I knew from all my training that the worst thing I could possibly ever do is leave Mark and go for help. Because I didn't know where to go for that help because we were that remote. And I made a very quick and conscious decision that, that we have to get someone to us. You know, it's the emotional part was really pushed aside. I just, we, I just went into, into rescue and survival mode and, and knew for a fact that every decision I made would either Work for or against us. From that. From that point on.

[John Moore]

The countdown has started. The two men need rescuing as fast as possible. But there is only one way to summon help. And it's back inside the plane. The onboard radio. The aircraft went down so quickly they didn't have a chance to put out a mayday. It's been about 15 minutes since the crash and so far at least the fuselage hasn't gone up in smoke. Maybe with a bit of luck it'll stay that way. But with fuel coating the wreckage, it'll only take a spark. Cautiously, John makes his way back towards what's left of the plane. His clothes positively reek of highly flammable aviation grade gasoline. He plants his feet on the burned ground, reaches inside the cockpit and gingerly lifts the receiver from its cradle. But without power, it's not going to be much use. You'll have to bring the plane's instrument panel back online. Slowly, carefully, John turns the key in the ignition. He doesn't dare breathe.

[Mark Freeman]

It's a bit like defusing a bomb, I think. You just, you don't know if it's going to go off. So I was ready to roll and duck and dive and jump over the cliff if I had to. I think it is a calculated gamble, I guess, to turn it, turn it on and make the call. Was it wise? I would, I don't know. But it was certainly one of those calculated risks I was prepared to take at the time.

[John Moore]

As the key turns, there's a flash of lights as the plane's instruments come alive again. John's shoulders relax. For the moment at least, the bomb doesn't seem to have gone off. But there is no time to waste. He presses down hard on the call button and sets about broadcasting a mayday signal.

[Mark Freeman]

I just called out Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Echo Bravo Mike. This is John Moore speaking. We've crashed in the Drakensberg. Can someone help? Or Over.

[John Moore]

But all that meets his plea is a fizz of white noise. John repeats the message a few more times, but it's no good. No one is there. And then a lightbulb moment. The plane's radio isn't in fact his only means of communication. There is the Nokia he brought with him at his wife's insistence. With its single bar of charge, it's still somewhere in the back of the cabin. The chances of getting any reception up here in the mountains are minimal, but it's obviously worth a shot. John leans over and fumbles around behind the seats until his fingers find the chunky phone. He grabs it and hastily checks the green and black LCD display. The phone still has a single bar of power but no signal to speak of.

[Mark Freeman]

I walked a couple of meters, maybe 50 or 100 meters away from the plane to a more exposed outcropping where I thought maybe just miraculously would get some kind of signal. And initially nothing. I don't know how long I wait I sat there for, but I do remember back then that signal certainly in our area came and went. So I sat there for maybe a couple of minutes and eventually to my amazement, I looked at my phone again and there was one bar of signal. So now I had to make the choice of who do I call because 5 out of my 10 friends would think I'm joking. So I decided in that moment to call Hilton, my uncle, who is a co owner of the plane because I believed he would be the person who would be the most receptive to the story he was about to hear. And he wouldn't say, well you're pulling my leg. So anyway, I called Hilton and I said hilton, it's John here, we've crashed the plane. And before he could say well ha ha, I said look, just listen to me, I've probably got one call and I need this call to count. And I relayed him the story. I said to Hilton, get hold of Mark Winter, my farming friend, he probably knows more or less where we are. And I said look, we need a doctor. Mark Freeman, my pilot, is in serious and deteriorating state.

[John Moore]

John's uncle confirms that he is understood. Barely has Hilton finished talking and the phone goes dead. The weak signal lost. John pockets the device, then makes his way back to Mark. He has to have faith in others now. He has done all he can. The next part is the hardest. The waiting game. An hour passes with no news and no sign of rescue. On his rocky bed, Mark is looking increasingly unwell. The bruises on his face are swelling up so much that he's starting to have trouble breathing.

[Mark Freeman]

He was physically deteriorating. As the adrenaline faded he was in more and more pain and more and more trouble. I had a real concern that what I managed to get in place wasn't going to be quick enough or good enough or, or anything in fact, because I just didn't know what was, what was coming from that phone call. I still remember that feeling really well. It was like there's a bit of a void. We're sitting in no man's land knowing that we had made comms, but not knowing what they were able to pull off and what was going to transpire.

[John Moore]

The sun's rays hammer down on the two men as time seems to pass slower and slower. But then finally, after an hour and a half of waiting, John's little phone, still hanging in there on its final bar of charge, starts ringing. Remarkably, it's caught a bit of signal again. This time it's Mark's dad on the line. He tells John that a rescue helicopter is on its way from Durban to search for them. Help is coming if they can both just hold on. But by now Mark's condition is deteriorating rapidly.

[Mark Freeman]

He was in a significant amount of pain. I couldn't administer any pain relief. We didn't have any of that. I remember recovering a jacket of his from the plane because as, as he went into shock, he started suffering the, the symptoms of, of getting cold and hot. So I managed to find his jacket which I remember putting under his head because I thought he was really struggling to breathe. So I put him on his side, I put him in the recovery position. I also at one point managed to find one of the silver blankets, the emergency blankets, which I covered him in. So I covered him in the jacket, put the blanket over him. I also found a water bottle. I knew he was dehydrating, so some points along the way I managed to get him to, to drink water with much difficulty because his lips and that were swollen up. He started starting to look like more like a football than a, than a face. I didn't know if he had a cracked skull, but he was compos mentis. I assumed that he had facial injuries, not brain injuries at that stage.

[John Moore]

Another hour slithers by, then a third higher and higher. The sun climbs in the sky, the temperature brutally increasing. As it does, John does his best to keep busy. He spreads out a large orange blanket on the ground, attempting to make the crash site more visible. If the chopper is coming all the way from Durban, 200km away, it'll only have enough fuel for a brief search of the area. Minutes, not hours. And Mark might not survive long enough to wait for a second rescue attempt.

[Narrator]

This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this. Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future. Today with a risk free [e-mail] Spotify greenlight.com Spotify you set the table, put.

[John Moore]

On a playlist, even made the lasagna from scratch. And now you're wearing it. OxiClean Max 4 spray tackles. Tough set in stains the first time adulting is hard fighting stains shouldn't be Oxiclean Max force. It's not clean unless it's OxiClean. Finally, after more than four hours, John hears the telltale sound of rotor blades in the distance. He looks up to see the burly outline of an Atlas oryx helicopter. A 15 meter long military chopper that he recognizes from his time in the army. But as the Oryx comes closer, it's clear that the pilot hasn't spotted John and Mark.

[Mark Freeman]

No sooner had I located it visually than it turned and went up a valley to the south of us. And that valley could have taken him the best part of 10 or 15 minutes to scout. Anyway, they came back out of that valley and that's when I first knew that they were really struggling to find us.

[John Moore]

John has just one final trick up his sleeve, or rather in his pocket. Quickly he pulls it out. It's a tiny signaling mirror salvaged from the wreck of the plane. It glints in the bright sunshine. It's not much bigger than a coaster or a cd. Right now, this tiny bit of equipment is their best chance of making it off the mountain alive.

[Mark Freeman]

I think it's called a heliograph, has the little R piece. It's got a small hole in the middle of a fairly small mirror. Something you can hold in your own hands probably 6 inches above, 5 inches. As I saw them come into view the second time that had been 10 or 15 kilometers away, I reckon in a straight line. I again moved out to where I was pretty exposed and I used this little mirror and literally used the little hole as a peep site and put the helicopter in the center of that thing. And I just sat there with the determination of knowing that if I stayed long enough that eventually see it.

[John Moore]

John grips the heliograph in his hands, trying to angle it in just the right way. Bright flashes of white light bounce against again and again off its surface. But away in the distance, the helicopter seems to be moving further away. Until John thinks he sees a change in direction a few seconds later. He's sure of it. It's coming their way.

[Mark Freeman]

I just stayed there for a good five or seven minutes. And yeah, it brought that little shiny mirror, brought that chopper right to our feet.

[John Moore]

Closer and closer the chopper comes into land. The Heavy slope of the crash site will make a proper landing impossible. But the rescuers improvise. The pilot manages to get just one wheel onto the ground. Good enough. Then, with the rotors still turning, a medic jumps down and begins tending to Mark's injuries. By now, John's friend is in a very bad way. Barely able to speak, the medic fits him with an IV and hands John an oxygen mask. He checks them both for spinal injuries, assured that they can be moved safely. John and Mark are then bundled into the aircraft. Before long, they're airborne once again.

[Mark Freeman]

We were flown to a town called Peter Maritzburg. They closed the main street off. They landed this big military helicopter in the middle of the street. An ambulance was there ready to pick us up and we're taken away, taken up to the ER, department and assessed. What Mark suffered was severe facial fractures. Both his jaws were broken. One of his eye sockets was quite severely damaged. When they assessed me, it was literally just whiplash. So they strapped on a neck brace and I spent a couple of hours in a hospital bed and was discharged that afternoon.

[John Moore]

All things considered, John has gotten off extremely lightly. And while Mark suffered far more extensive injuries, in time he too is able to make a full recovery. John says he recognizes how lucky the two of them were to cheat death in the Drakensbergs. But he tries to move on as quickly as he can to get back to his life.

[Mark Freeman]

I don't know, I just kind of was a bit the same old, same old. I just knew how to get on with it. I wasn't not allowed to fly again. I was quite happy to fly again. And in fact, the funny story behind this was that I think the very next week we were flying overseas with my wife and, and some friends. And every time we landed, everyone would cheer and say, one out of two safe landings and give me a big round of applause. It is a mistake in the. In hindsight, it was a mistake to fly in the mountains in a small plane. Certainly was a mistake in not knowing or understanding that with the weather systems better. The reality of the life we were living at that stage was that there was risk involved in doing what we did. Obviously we never planned to wind up in the position we did. Certainly it was a rain check. It certainly made me, my young family, more aware of the risks we were taking. And ironically, we got those cattle back many, many weeks later. And through no aerial observation whatsoever, but through information on the ground, I think we got 18 of the 20 cattle back, which was, yeah, great results. It could have ended very badly. But it was the, the silver lining at the end of a, of a very long, difficult story.

[John Moore]

But the realities of farming in South Africa begin to take their toll on John and his family. As the years go by, the scourge of stock theft shows no sign of abating. And in 2015, they decided change is needed. The family starts a new life in a new country. Though he never forgets South Africa, his near death experience and the lessons he's learned from both.

[Mark Freeman]

We left in 2015 and now live in Australia. It's a different lifestyle. The safety and security is quite different here and we don't have to face these kind of challenges. But yeah, at the same time they, they are what they are and they've forged who we are. And as I've got older, I've realized that, yeah, it's shaped us certainly molded who we were, who I am, the survival. I was quite proud, actually. I still remember writing a letter to the owners of the plane describing not only how proud I was of how I did what I needed to do, but also how proud I was of what Mark did in his part of getting us onto the ground. I wasn't sad about it and I wasn't distraught about it. I was probably more proud that we had actually learned through the experience of what we did. It was a miracle. It was a miraculous event. And then beyond that, we saved ourselves.

[John Moore]

Next time on Real Survival Stories. We meet cave diver Martin Robson in 2012. He is in a remote region of southwest Russia exploring the depths of Blue Lake, a murky, fog laden body of water which holds a mystery beneath its surface. Martin is experienced and cool headed. But hundreds of feet below the surface, a mysterious, invisible, excruciating force, suddenly overwhelmed, overwhelms him. Semi paralyzed and sinking underwater, Martin will go through an ordeal that will ultimately last not for hours, but days. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser plus.

[Narrator]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[John Moore]

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