CAPE TOWN  - A South African Air Force pilot has been grounded for “borrowing” a plane to visit a friend in neighbouring Botswana and an officer has been reprimanded for spicing up her uniform with hot pink slippers, the defence ministry said Wednesday. The pilot has been “grounded and subsequently suspended from flying” for nipping across the border to visit a pal, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said in reply to a parliamentary question.
Earlier this year local media reported that the offender, now named as Lieutenant NSK Bulwana, flew across the border in a Cessna 172 without submitting a flight plan or permission to enter Botswana’s airspace. He was visiting a friend who worked at the airport in the capital Gaborone. Meanwhile the minister of defence said a senior air force staff officer who accessorised her uniform with bright pink slippers during a shopping trip had been “reprimanded”. The woman, a lieutenant colonel, was photographed pushing a trolley at a checkout queue at a shopping mall. She was in uniform including a garrison cap.