Livingstone - Jet Setting Capital of Northern Rhodesia

From Great North Road

At 3:10 pm May 2nd 1952 B.O.A.C. Comet Mark 1, Yoke Peter (G-ALYP) took off from London Heathrow for Johannesberg on the world's first paying jet passenger flight.

The flight went to Rome, Beruit, Khartoum, Entebbe, Livingstone and then Johannesberg taking a total time of 23 hours 37 minutes for a total distance of 6724 miles.

While I cannot recall whether I saw the inaugural flight, I do recall seeing the Comet while I was in Livingstone in 1952. Watching the plane arrive and take off was a thrill for any six year old boy. I will always remember the sleek aircraft hurtling down the runway with it's powerful Rolls-Royce engines screaming as it climbed steeply into the bright blue heavens, wishing that I could have been one of the passengers.

Comet Livingstone 1952.

Comet Livingstone 1952.

The earlier variants of the de Havilland Comet DH 106, suffered numerous disasterous crashes. The Yoke Peter, crashed off Elba in the Mediterranean Sea on January 10th, 1954 with all lives on board being lost. Shortly after this, all Comets were grounded.

The Comet returned to service around 1958. The new variant was the Comet Mark 4. In December 1959, I was fortunate to fly in a Comet Mark 4, on the return of the inaugural flight from Johannesberg to London. I had just turned thirteeen and my parents sent me to visit my Grandparents in Scotland. As the Comet sped down the runway in the darkness of night and lifted sharply into the heavens my dream finally came true, I was finally a passenger on the Comet.

Contributed by Ken Miller.

July 14, 2001