longgrass..# 4440
Vince Caffarella who flew , briefly, for Cooktown Air Services, maintenance HQ Mt Molloy. Used to come to our bush house just near the strip and go straight to the fridge. Funny guy ...and obviously always hungry.!
He flew for a Catholic mission out of Wewak for 6 ? years, before Cooktown Air, but wanted to get back to PNG.
Before he left he visited with his new lady friend, English ? and name forgotten.
The Catholic mission put him on the south side of the country, which he had yet to 'learn' as intimately as he knew the northside. I believe he got boxed in ,wrong valley and went in off the turn back. Vince and his lady were killed and her parents in the back badly injured. Only quoting hearsay here, which may not be 100%
One of his anecdotes I do recall was trapped in a valley, he had to go 'holding pattern' until after some hours and many 'looks' he could just see the bottom of the target strip thru the ragged cloud base and quickly scrapped in before it closed off again. Fuel was getting low ...and nowhere to go...! Twitch, twitch !!
Such is life in PNG ..and sadly for Vince his death and hers. RIP
I still have the neg of an advertising shot for CAS with Vince and ? looking at docs beside the C 206.
I met another guy , name forgotten, who had flown seafood out of Daru to Goroka and he did the same thing nr Taipini. RIP again.