Skip to main content

RIEP Monte Vianna

 

AFRICANA

STAFF MAN

KILLED IN

AIR CRASH

THE FOLLOWING is an obituary I was not able to write because I was away somewhere in the world on an assignment and by the time I got back my friend and colleague Monte Vianna was already dead, buried and with the angels. He was one of the most beloved of young men and there would not have been a single person alive who would have one bad word to say about him. With his departure, a dark cloud hung around almost everyone who knew Monte.

By John Eames (former editor of the Sunday Nation and Africana magazine)

(Africana was a popular magazine published by the Nation Group)

One of the magazine’s staff writers was killed in a light aircraft crash in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park in August. Monte Vianna was just 25, but had long been regarded as one of the most foremost tourism and wildlife reporters in the country; he was the specialist writer on the subject for the Nation group of newspapers which includes Africana.

Quite predictably, the crash and the five-day search for the aircraft caught the imagination of the Kenyan people. It built up into the biggest air-sea-land search ever mounted here and came to the attention of President Jomo Kenyatta himself.

The plane was found eventually near Tsavo’s Buchuma Gate entrance on the Nairobi-Mombasa Road; it was 70 miles off course to Mombasa. Monte had been killed on impact but the pilot Kamal Sabharwal had miraculously survived and was found wandering around, badly concussed, in fear of the animals but only superficially hurt.

After the drama of the search came a flood of tributes. Monte’s two chief attributes were a total dedication to wildlife preservation and tourism promotion, and an easy-going, generous personality were described in messages of sympathy from the President downwards.

We worked closely, of course, and in fact were together on an African assignment at the time of the accident, which is why I must add the last obituary:

Monte was either too young or unable to assume any cynical detachment in his job. He was still wide-eyed about Kenya’s natural attractions and entirely involved in the cause of promoting them locally and through his string with German travel magazines.

His mild, almost shy, manner helped considerably and he moved easily in areas of sometimes touchy sensitivity. He became trusted and well-informed.

A second crusade developed a few weeks before his death. He was promoted to run the Nation’s Mombasa office and he immediately became heavily engaged in providing blanket news coverage of his vast Coast territory, administering the office and building circulation. He turned up everywhere, frequently air-ferried by his friend Kamal, who was also an expert photographer.

Monte was busy, but there was always time for a specific Africana job, or to send up a feature on his own initiative, or for a personal favour. For instance, a week before the accident, he agreed to meet Joy Adamson at the airport for me and settle her in a hotel. Typically, he spent the entire weekend as her chauffeur and general handyman. But he was amused by it all and – anyway, as he said, it was “a good story”.

The following weekend I was to go to Lamu for Africana. I told him and his immediate response was an offer to organise the flight. Kamal subsequently hired a tiny Cherokee 140 and Monte came along to take aerial pictures for me.

We explored the coastline at low altitude, earmarking stretches of magnificent empty beaches for ourselves and diving to inspect huge colonies of sea birds on coral atolls close to Lamu.

I remained on the island and the others flew out an hour before dusk, having been delayed by a boat breakdown in the channel between Lamu and Manda Island, where the airstrip was located. Mombasa control heard from the pilot after dark, around 7 pm. There was no hint of anxiety, and he expected to sight Mombasa at any moment. After that, there was no further contact.

The search began at first light with the Kenya armed forces engaged and scores of civilian volunteers as well. The operation was thorough and intensified rather than fell off as the days passed.

Eventually, the wreckage was found, with Monte’s body strapped fast to the upturned cockpit. Tracker dogs were brought in and 24 hours later, Kamal was found – badly sunburned, parched and delirious. He had survived on berries and dew on the leaves.

They might have landed halfway to Mombasa; perhaps at Malindi as the light began to fail that even and grey rain clouds built up. But they had a flying assignment early the following morning. They were to cover the foundation of the first safari lodge in the Taita Hills.

This was a priority assignment for Monte; and he was looking forward to it. The lodge would help open up the area to tourism. It was an important development in his special field – in his private territory. It was “a good story”.

Born in Mombasa on July 7, 1946 to Manuel and Anna Vianna, his siblings include Ernest Vianna who lives in Toronto Canada, the late Xavier and Alfred and his sisters were Helen, Zeena and Monica. His youngest brother was Manu. The Viannas were a highly motivated, sports-minded and adventurous family. Monte was just 25 years old when he met with the accident.

 

 

 

Comments

Mwarabu said…
I heard about the accident many years ago. later in life i came to know kamal sabharwal a publisher and philantrophist. in 1978 he financed Adrain Grimwood and Shiraz Alibhai to start the coastweek weekly newspaper in mombasa. is kamal still alive? i wonder.

Mwarabu said…
As a matter of fact I would like to know if all the above are all dead or alive, lost contact with them for 40 years and more. I last saw Shiraz Alibhai at the Staverose cafe in Mombasa having tea with Akram Sheikh of the Shankar Electronics kilindini road mombasa. and I last saw Adrain with his swedish wife at Nyali Beach Hotel disco hole in the wall in those days. Now I wonder who is alive or dead .

Popular posts from this blog

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.  

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....

The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya

  The sanctuaries trying to save birds of prey from extinction in Kenya (Courtesy of Al Jazeera) Poison, deforestation and power lines have pushed the African raptor population to a 90 per cent decline in the last 40 years. Raptor technician John Kyalo Mwanzia rehabilitates a juvenile fish eagle to flight after it was treated for grounding injuries sustained in a territorial fight at the Lake Naivasha habitat, at Soysambu Raptor Centre. [Tony Karumba/AFP] Simon Thomsett tentatively removes a pink bandage from the wing of an injured bateleur, a short-tailed eagle from the African savannah, where birds of prey are increasingly at risk of extinction. “There is still a long way to go before healing,” Thomsett explains as he lifts up the bird’s dark feathers and examines the injury. “It was injured in the Maasai Mara national park, but we don’t know how,” says the 62-year-old vet who runs the Soysambu Raptor Centre in central Kenya. The 18-month-old eagle, with a dist...