Indonesian Earthquake
Perhaps this isn’t quite the correct place to post this but I believe it will interest a lot of current Bristow and ex-Bristow people out there. The recent tragic earthquake in Indonesia, centered near the town of Padang, brought back a lot of memories.
My first posting after joining Bristow was the Rio Tinto Operation at Padang in the early 70’s where the crew were; Chunky Lord (CP), Klaus Linke, Yves Le Roy, Keith Wilkinson (CE), Roger Tingley, Mike McCormack and Martin Boardley. Over time, others that came to the operation were Bill Pollard (who replaced Chunky as CP), Chris Dillon, (who replaced Keith as CE) and Chas Newport (who replaced Chris as CE). Another name I remember as an engineering leave relief was Pat Bolt.
The helicopters were a couple of 206A’s (one Bell and one Agusta if I recall correctly) that were fitted with water-methanol injection to improve performance. Another 206A had been involved in an accident prior to my arrival when, taking-off from a stream, it is believed the rear of one skid got caught under a rock and flipped the helicopter over. No one was hurt but the helicopter was written-off.
Another name that comes to mind is Barry Newman (is that correct?), who was the Area Manager based in Jakarta. He was flying to Padang on a Merpati Airlines Viscount that tried multiple approaches into Tabing in bad weather but then crashed into the sea off Padang killing everyone onboard. The helicopters would also occasionally have difficulty getting into Tabing during bad weather, pilots had to be very mindful of the high ground surrounding the airport on two sides. To make the situation worse, the people at the airport tower had a strange habit of switching off the NDB in really bad weather thinking that nobody would be flying in conditions like that!
This was a seismic operation and all of the work was conducted from temporary field camps. Padang was only a base that was used for maintenance and this was done in the Indonesian Air Force hangar at Tabing Airport. Domestic accommodation at Padang was the Rio Tinto staff house, known simply as ‘The Blue House’ because of the exterior colour.
When the number of people at Padang exceed the capacity of The Blue House, the overflow was housed in local hotels and one of these was the Mariani International Hotel. Now remember, this was the early 70’s and ‘Mariani International Hotel’ didn’t quite match expectations that the name conjured up, but it was clean and comfortable. The hotel was owned by Mrs. Mariani who would meet every arriving flight and ask everyone “Do you need a hotel?” She did this constantly and must have recognized most of us after a while but that never stopped her asking, you couldn’t help but admire her.
So it was with a great deal of sadness that I learned that one of the many buildings destroyed by the earthquake was the Mariani International Hotel. My thoughts and condolences go out to the fine people of Padang and West Sumatra.