Originally Posted by
Willie Nelson
...With a fully loaded Islander struggling to climb at almost ten thousand feet above sea level we were indicating an airspeed of 65 knots. I couldn't help but notice the trees rushing past us no more that one thousand feet below despite not being able to see anything in front of us.
Having been awed by the view up to that point, I failed to realise that Geoff had been using a Garmin 100 GPS receiver to determine his position through the "Gap"...
Absolute madness. That is so wrong for so many reasons. Even by PNG standards, which I'm quite familiar with (having 10 years experience flying in PNG). Pilots get killed in PNG mainly because they do stuff that they shouldn't. Either because they've seen someone else do it, or they feel under pressure to do it for whatever reason, or for reasons known only to themselves. Controlled flight into terrain, usually in bad weather. Nothing mechanically wrong with the aircraft.