My flight career began in 2012 at the age of 22, just after having earned my pilot’s license from the Ethiopian Airline’s Pilot Training School. It was a dream come true and it was an honor and privilege to serve at the venerated Ethiopian Airlines. I have come a long way from my elementary school days from south-western Ethiopian village of Becho, 20kms from Metu, 541.km from Addis Ababa. I did high school study in Metu town, the capital of Illubabor province and for my college study, I headed extreme north and joined Mekele University’s Electrical Engineering Department in 2007. While I was the fourth year, I quit and joined the Pilot Training School in Addis Ababa and graduated two years later. I was one of the top students in my class.

I came to lose my job because of a casual conversation with a colleague. Yalewlet Fanta Said.

While I started enjoying my position as a pilot, with its good pay and prestige, and move up in positions that benefited both the company and myself, it was unfortunately cut short by something I could not have imagined. I came to lose my job because of a casual conversation with a colleague.

What happened was on January 2016, I made a flight to Dakar, Senegal. We stayed there for three days. At the time, political protest was flaring up in Ethiopia, particularly in the restive Oromia region and the country was in the middle of a state of emergency. During a layoff, I happened to be engaged in a friendly conversation with a security man, a covert law enforcement on the flight, named Getachew. We were discussing the political situation in the country, I made it clear to him that I sympathised with the plight of the demonstrators back home in Ethiopia. I was aware of his political inclinations and that he was a spy. The exchange became heated, he carried on ardently defending the actions of security forces and that of the TPLF regime. He argued that TPLF made sacrifices and liberated the country from the Derg, and the dominance was justified. At some point, he even denied that dominance and I mentioned it to him that for example among the 80 security men working for the Airlines, only two are non-Tigrayans. I never thought that conversation would have a consequence. But that was what happened. When I went back to Addis Ababa, I was told to come to the office of the VP Flight Operations Yohannes H/Mariam. .Yalewlet Fanta Said.