Mike Willesee’s plane crash premonition
When veteran journalist Mike Willesee boarded a Cessna plane in Nairobi, Kenya, flying to South Sudan with cameraman Greg Low to film a documentary, he had a strong, extraordinary feeling that the aircraft would crash. It was a premonition.
“I couldn’t understand it,” he recounted in an interview with Australian Story. “I had this fight in my own head before I got on the plane. How do I tell Greg that it’s going to crash? I don’t believe in premonitions. Did I believe it was going to crash? Absolutely.”
Shortly after take-off – during a tropical downpour, mind you – the plane started to experience engine issues.
“When it stalled, and it stopped for this one excruciating second and then started to spiral and go down, the only thought I could get out of my head was, ‘I was right’, which is pretty freaky.”
“I said my first prayer to a God who I didn’t understand and whose existence I was quite unsure of.”
After crashing into the ground, the pilot and two other passengers fled the smoking wreckage, leaving Willesee and Low still strapped to their seats. Willesee was able to unbuckle himself, but Low remained stuck
“Greg’s seat buckle was jammed because he had his camera on his lap and we thought the plane would explode and burn because of the noise and incredible amount of smoke. So I ran back into the plane and Greg freed himself as I got in and we got out.”
Willesee, who was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame on Friday, says the experience renewed his childhood Catholic faith. “It still took me I think maybe two years, for me to actually say there is a God,” he said.
Tell us in the comments below, have you ever had a premonition? Did it come true?
Image credit: Britta Campion/The Australian.