Chasing Zebras Off the Runway Is a Real Job in Africa. This Week Showed Why

On Sunday morning, a plane hit a zebra while taking off from the Serengeti. Thirty people on board walked away unhurt after a belly landing at Kilimanjaro, but the zebra strike pointed to one of the strangest jobs in aviation. At airstrips across Africa's national parks, someone is responsible for making sure lions, giraffes and zebras aren't standing on the runway when a plane comes in.

What Happened in the Serengeti

The plane was an Embraer Brasilia, a 30-seat turboprop flown by Sindbard Air, a Tanzanian charter airline. It was leaving Seronera, a gravel airstrip in the middle of Serengeti National Park, for Zanzibar on Sunday with 26 passengers

The crew diverted to Kilimanjaro International Airport, and when the main landing gear wouldn't come down, they landed the plane on its belly. Video shows smoke trailing from the aircraft as it scraped down the runway. No one was hurt, and the airport closed for several hours while crews cleared the plane away.

Tanzania's accident investigators have opened an inquiry, and they haven't confirmed whether the zebra actually caused the landing gear problem. Either way, the strike itself shows how normal it is for planes and wildlife to share the same patch of ground in places like the Serengeti.

The Job Nobody Talks About

Safari airstrips aren't airports in the usual sense. Most are unfenced strips of gravel or packed dirt built right into the parks, because that's where tourists want to go. The animals don't know the difference between a runway and any other open field, and some seem to prefer it. A guide to the Masai Mara's airstrips in Kenya notes that topi, zebra and sometimes giraffes sleep on the warm gravel at night and graze on the strips during the day.

So before a plane arrives, someone goes to clear the way. At Londolozi, a private reserve in South Africa, rangers drive up to the airstrip well before each flight is due to land, along with the reserve's air marshal. They often have to drive toward impala, giraffe, wildebeest or zebra milling around the grass to move them off the strip.

Pilots do their part too. At many bush strips, a plane makes a low pass over the runway before landing, flying in fast and close to the ground to scare animals away, then circling back to land for real. If you've ever been on a safari flight that seemed to buzz the airstrip for no reason, that was the reason.

Big Airports Do It Too

Wildlife control isn't just a bush-strip problem. Under international aviation standards, airports everywhere are expected to manage the risk of birds and animals getting in the way of planes, and the biggest ones have entire teams for it.

The Kenya Airports Authority, which runs Nairobi's main airport, has advertised a full-time role for a "Manager, Birds & Wildlife Control." According to the listing, the job is to develop and oversee "the airport's bird/wildlife hazard management program to minimize the risk of bird and wildlife strikes." At a major airport, that usually means fences, grass kept at the right height to discourage birds and animals, and staff on patrol.

The difference at a place like Seronera is that the whole point is to be surrounded by wildlife. You can't fence off the Serengeti, so the job comes down to people, vehicles and pilots checking the runway every time.

Should Safari Travelers Worry?

Not really. Collisions with animals as big as a zebra are uncommon, which is why this one made headlines around the world, and the crew still got everyone down safely despite a serious problem with the plane.

If anything, it's a reminder to appreciate the people you never see on a safari trip. Before your little plane touches down in the middle of the bush, someone has probably already driven down the runway to make sure a zebra wasn't lying on it.