Homemade Plane Carries South African Teens to Cairo

South African aircraft landed in Egypt, three weeks after leaving Cape Town. It was built by teenagers.

A group of 20 learners from very distinct backgrounds constructed the four-seater Sling 4 aircraft.

They landed in Namibia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Tanzania and Uganda during the 12,000km (7,455 mile) trip.

Pilot Megan Werner, 17, U-Dream Global project founder, said she was thrilled with the achievement, according to BBC.

"I'm so honoured to have made a difference around the continent at the places we've stopped,” she said.

She added: "The purpose of the initiative is to show Africa that anything is possible if you set your mind to it."

The teen flyers were followed by another Sling 4 aircraft, flew by skilled pilots, whose objective was to offer other teens motivational talks along.

The teenagers constructed the South African aircraft in three weeks from a kit produced by the Airplane Factory in South Africa. It included the assembly of thousands of tiny components.

Megan's father Des Werner, who is a commercial pilot, said that assembling a Sling 4 would usually take 3,000 man hours.

Megan said that the amazing feat had its difficulties.

In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, they could not get fuel.

They were unable to get fuel in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.

"When we eventually got it, the support aircraft started leaking fuel so they couldn't fly with us and only two people - Driaan van den Heever, the safety pilot, and I carried on," Megan said. "We were concerned about flying across Sudan because of the political unrest in that country."

Megan was one of six in the group who acquired a pilot's license and the six shared flying responsibilities in their silver aircraft, emblazoned with maps of Africa on both sides along with the logos of sponsors.

Their basic pilot licenses posed another challenge as they allow only flying at a height where the ground is still noticeable and cloud entry is prohibited.

The last leg, from Addis Ababa to Cairo via Aswan, tested the pilots' mettle.

"Driaan van den Heever and I flew alone for 10 hours, without the support aircraft, so it was two teenagers, all by ourselves with no support," Megan said.

The two pilots encountered a problem with one of their avionic systems about an hour into Egyptian airspace. So they decided it would be better to land at the closest domestic airport in Cairo, instead of the international airport as planned.

"That created a little chaos but it was done in the interest of safety," Des Werner said.

"In the end it was just a loose connection which they sorted out but the bureaucratic process took a while to sort out because they had to complete a report," he added.

"When we landed in Egypt the authorities wanted to arrest us, take our passports and licences but luckily after about four hours, everything was sorted out and we got some more fuel and carried on to Aswan. We then flew from Aswan to Cairo and it was a really awesome feeling to land here," said Megan.