Mission Impropable by Leonard Nones

The time: The Mad men era.

The place: A Madison Ave. Ad agency:

The assignment: Drop a case of Canadian Club whisky

onto the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Kenya, in Africa.

As a freelance commercial photographer based in NYC, I have had many very interesting assignments. But the assignment I want to tell you about today was special.

CC whisky had been running ads called the “Adventure series”. The theme of these ads was put a case of whisky in some obscure place and then explain in the copy were they could be found. The only reward would be the consumption of the booze.

It was my good fortune to get an assignment to drop a case of CC into the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The art director, Wally, who was employed by the ad agency, and I were to go to Nairobi, Kenya to make the arrangements and then photograph the dropping of a case of CC onto the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro by parachute.

The ad agency was able to give us one contact in Nairobi who would help with travel and logistics. Other than that we were on our own and there was no Photoshop. The year was 1968. Our contact was referred to in the non PC term as the white hunter. I had images of meeting Clark Gable, Greg Peck or Farley Grainger My White hunter was named….. Monty Rubin.

Wally and I arrived in Nairobi on a Thurs. night and were met at the airport by Monty. He was very pleasant and immediately invited us to Fri. night dinner at his home. Dinner was exactly the same as dinner at my grandmother’s on a Friday night. First some chopped liver with a bit of hardboiled egg sprinkled on top, then Chicken soup. followed by the boiled chicken and carrots that was used to make the soup. Not what I expected in darkest Africa. All kosher.

The following day we had to get to work. We had no idea what Kilimanjaro looked like so the first thing we did was charter a small plane and have a first look at our subject. The summit was covered with snow and topped off at over 19,000 ft. White parachutes would not show against the snow. We returned to Nairobi, and started hunting for parachutes. We would need orange chutes. It was hard enough to get hold of white parachutes, let alone orange. The Nairobi police agreed to sell us 3 white parachutes. How to make them orange was the next problem. I found the name of a commercial laundry in the phonebook and they said they would dye them bright orange.

Meanwhile, we needed a plane that could fly at an altitude of 21,000 feet. Once again the N. police came through with a pilot and an old C-47. But, we could only have the plane at dawn 2 days later. Could we get the chutes packed….. 3 cases of CC secured inside some makeshift impact resistant boxes….. and be at the airport at dawn in a day and a half?

When we went to PU the chutes at the laundry we found them wet spread out on the grass drying in the sun. The owner, a very nice Chinese gentleman, told me he could not put them in the dryer for fear that the lines would become tangled. We paid him, scooped up the wet chutes and went to the Nairobi airport where we going to have 2 professional skydivers pack the chutes. Nothing doing the water on the chutes would freeze at altitude and would not open. Once again Nairobi police to the rescue. They brought out a small Cessena and we tied one chute at a time to the tail started the engine and blew them out the back to dry.

A chase plane would be necessary so that we could fly in tandem with the C-47 and allow me to photograph the packages as the came out. Yet Again the police were able to supply a Cessena Turbo Skylane. A 4 seater that could fly up to 25,000 Ft

At dawn the following morning, skydivers, art director and photographer were at the airport ready to go with our cargo of CC already loaded.

As we were climbing into the C-47, O’Shaunessy, one of the skydivers, handed me a parachute. I said, “What do I need this for I would not know what to do if I fell out of the plane”. His reply “If you fall out I will jump out after you and bring you down safely”.

We had a smooth take off and in a short time were approaching Mt. Kilimanjaro. The next step was to remove the 7’ by 7’ cargo door. A blast of frigid air exploded into the plane. The noise and wind were terrifying and numbing. I looked out, astounded, over all of Africa from 20,000 ft. Capt. Bearcroft, our pilot, gave us the green light and O’Shaunessy, lying on his back, shoved the first case into space as I clicked away on my Nikon.

So far so good. I didn’t fall out of the plane. At the base of Kilimanjaro is a grass strip where we were to rendezvous with the Cessena. We transferred to the smaller plane and in tandem were back in the air, climbing. O’Shaunessy was in the C-47, prepared to push out the other 2 cases. As we flew side by side I waited for Kilimanjaro to be framed in back of the C-47 and on my radio signal O’Shaunessy sent one package flying out. Click, click click went the Nikon. We made a second run, this time closer together, out came the third case click, click, click. We turned and flew back to Nairobi.

Not the end of the story. 18 years later a couple from Sweden who were climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro somehow became separated from their 10 year son near the summit. Rescue teams were dispatched to search for the boy. They were using long poles to probe the deep snow and ice hoping to find him,when they struck something hard. You got it, one of our packages. Not one of the bottles was broken. The boy was found unharmed and the rescuers celebrated with, your right CC.