Merged: APNG Twin Otter Missing

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APNG Twin Otter Missing

Hi Tinpis

Please check your PM's

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[tinpis]

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Lukim PM bilong yu yet

TeePee

[Spotlight]

Fantome

Its there alright. Jack Rydstrom. Desperate circumstances from what I remember.

Pete Caisley. I remember like it was yesterday.

[ZEEBEE]

1961 Mar G. Wallace Piaggio P166B -PAL Nr Kokoda Gap

Any of you PNG hands know if the wreckage was ever found? Was a good friend to this then teenager.

Brian

I believe Geoff was found about eight months later, well after the search was abandoned. Six or seven other aircraft found during the search.

Heard that he had been thrown clear of the wreckage but fatally injured.

Not sure where the source came from as it was some time ago. I seem to remember it was from another pilot who also flew for Ansett mandated Airlines.

[tinpis]

Bill thought he might die here - Papua New Guinea Aviation

Old hands remember that stuff forming around you and that hole gettin, smaller and smaller.......

[groper]

its hard to disorientate when you have those massive rocks sticking out like a saw thumb on the horizon

As A380-800 Driver points out, it is not hard but the rocks are. Disorentation is not restricted to spatial disorientation in IMC. I've seen many a good pilot disoriented (suffering from illusions) 'in the clear' but without a visual horizon....even though they thought they had one.

PNG and Irian Jaya seem to be the worst places I've witnessed it happening.

[Capt Fathom]

Caribou that was unsuccessfully dead sticked on a river killing the two on board. The F/O was a woman from Mackay,, Lavers

There were 3 onboard.

Dianne Laver was not part of the crew. Just along for the ride! And yes she did come from Mackay. The daughter of Rex Laver who had a life long association with aviation.

She was a pilot herself, and was the partner of the Caribou Captain.

[Wiley]

A logbook of missing aircraft that was kept in the old Jackson's Control Tower SAR room, was a sobering tome to peruse. There was way over 600 allied aircraft still missing, of which a large number would have of course perished due to enemy action, while many were cfit or water.

Sharpie, during the war in PNG, Allied casualties due to sickness and tropical diseases versus enemy action were on the a ratio of 10:1, i.e., ten soldiers were 'lost' to disease for every one lost to enemy action.

I can't recall where I read this, but I understand that wartime Allied aircraft losses due to weather, mechanical failure etc versus enemy action in the PNG area were at about the same ratio. This probably wasn't the case in the first 12 months, when the Japanese were in the ascendency, but after that, I can well believe those figures.

[blackhand]

In this case, both the Captain and FO had in excess of 4 years and 2,000 hours flying in PNG on Twin Otter aircraft. She would have been formally checked into Kokoda by a Check Captain. In that time (as a guess) they would have both flown the route at least 50-100 times

Word is that the PIC had been checked only recently into Kokoda. Previously been flying LH seat into Popendetta. Had been on the route less than two weeks.

Maybe it is a case of not knowing when to be scared.

[olderairhead]

Many years ago when I arrived in Lae for my first job, I was given some words of wisdom that initially did not mean much but as time went by became more and more pertinent.

Those words of wisdom; Fly to your own limitations.

When I first heard them it did not really mean anything until one day I was following another aircraft into Pindiu. The weather was average and the other pilot got in. I thought well if he can, so can I. Wrong!

The other pilot had 3 years more experience operating out of Lae than I had. Sure I had been going to Pindiu for 3 months but this guys knew that valley like the back of his hand.

What I did scared me sh!tless, but taught me a valuable lesson. Fly to your limitations, not that of those with much more experience. If you do, you live to fly another day. Push on because he could do it and maybe you won't.

I may be wrong but the latest accident seems to match the scenario I have painted. Time will tell to see if I am correct.

[teresa green]

This has brought back terrible memories for me. TAA in their wisdom??? checked me out as a check and training Captain at the grand ol age of 27 and the very first pilot I checked out, nine days later flew into a mountain in the same valley. The TAA community was shocked, I needless to say was gutted. He had everything going for him, intelligent, calm, interested, a good pilot, father of two, happy, and to make matters worse on board he had nine catholic nuns mainly from local regions. It was in the seventies, his last name was Mckillop and it was a Twotter. I have spent countless hours going over everything, how he reacted, his behaviour, his ability to fly the aircraft, his personna, there was no reason to fail this bloke and yet he and his pax died. Even now in quiet moments I go over it again, (especially now). Everything Chimbo posts here is correct, and remember we were wallowing around in DC3's as well, and a taildragger aint much fun in some of those strips, but like most pilots who flew in PNG I would not swap it for anything, but will take the death of that pilot and his passengers to my grave.

[OzExpat]

Photo of Kokoda Airstrip

I think that someone asked for a photo of the strip. This is the best that I can do on short notice.



As Chuck and others have said, in it's heyday, it was a DC3 strip but, as you can see, there's not a lot of opportunity to take photos on approach. And, as it's a one-way strip, not a lot to see on the way out either. Land 17, take-off 35.

This photo was taken some MANY years ago but, even then, the strip had progressively fallen into disrepair, with a large unusable section prior to the permanently displaced THR. Average elevation 1269 feet, length (excluding unusable section) 855 metres, average slope 2.2% (1.26 degrees). Surface is grassed black silt which is quite solid in dry conditions, but a tad slippery when wet.

[hoggsnortrupert]

Sense's:

Teresa:
but will take the death of that pilot and his passengers to my grave.

I "understand", as do alot of others:

That said, and please dont think me as being heartless, I am moved by your words, and thoughts.

Let it go, let it go, let it go, dont let your mind visit this place:

H/Snort.

[blackhand]

H/Snort advised

Let it go, let it go, let it go, dont let your mind visit this place

It is tough when someone dies on our watch, those of us that have been there empathise with you Teresa,
And somehow we go on - that little bit more careful. Keeping the ghosts off the verandah late at nite is the hardest bit.

[coolchange666]

I would guess a few of us have been in Teresa's position. I checked a guy into the jungle strips out of moresby where he pranged an islander a couple months later.. no-one died but a pax lost a limb. A guy I knew well.. AY checked a guy out into the Telefomin/Oksapmin area where trainee crashed his 206 and died on the very next trip there. He was very messed up about that and eventually became a figure of note within the PNG accident investigation scene.. working out his karma?.. who knows.

BTW Sharpie for your amazing list the Kokoda crash a/c reg is P2-MCB.

[sundaun]

Patair Piaggio

This aircraft has not been found. Departed with a load of peanuts for POM,

[Dog One]

Remember young McKillop when he flew the Queenair for TAA out of HBA, prior to going to PNG

[FlexibleResponse]

Teresa Green,

I know where you are coming from.

However, you can provide training to candidate, you can give him the benefit of your experience, but you can't give him your experience. When a pilot trainee has met the training requirements of the job in hand, he is then on his own and is licenced to kill both himself and his passengers.

That unfortunately is his affair, and in no way, is it any of your business.

Reflect on the hugely successful careers of the many other pilots you have trained if you must...we only get one shot at this thing called life.

Living is a dangerous occupation that inevitably ends up in death...so we must concentrate on enjoying what we can before the final curtain call!

[teresa green]

Thanks for listening fellas. I guess when you are check and training especially in areas like PNG you get to know the bloke quite well, you have a few beers, get to know what makes them tick, and listen to them talk about themselves and their hopes for themselves and their families, and more often than not get to like the bloke. It was a very tightknit community, TAA in PNG, and we would socialize as well as fly together, so when we lost a pilot and a aircraft it was very distressing to say the least. Obviously I had to go to his funeral, and face his young wife, and then spent endless hours with Australian safety crash investigators, and there was not really a satisfactory outcome, not to me anyway. The Twotter has flown countless hours up there, and has given great service, I certainly prefered it to the DC3, which was "heavy" to fly, in that enviroment, but of course acknowledge it is one of the greatest aircraft ever built. Anyway,anyone who is given the oportunity to fly in PNG take it with both hands, no sim, no training in this country, will give you a experience like it, and your skills will be appreciated by any airline in the world...

[EBCAU]

I was interested to read the list of accidents over the years provided by Sharpie and remember some of those that were lost - and it is not a complete list.
In my time in PNG I have kept a log of pilots that have worked for a particular company that I have had a long association with. Only six weeks ago I updated the list and moved it to a spreadsheet where it's easy to move things around. Because of this I selected those that I knew were no longer with us (in the wider sense) and posted them in their own column. I suddenly realized there were quite a few. I divided their number by the total list and was staggered at the ratio of those that didn't make it.
Not all, but most, died in PNG in the same line of work. I didn't realize that what we are doing now appeared to be as dangerous as the early days of agricultural flying.
I made a comment about my findings as a few other pilots came into the room. A young, relatively inexperienced, pilot looked at me as if I was odd and said "Why would you bother to mention such a morbid thing." My reply was "Perhaps so someone like you is reminded of the fact that this job is dangerous and might be safer because of it." It didn't seem to make a difference to his outlook though. Pity.
Perhaps I shouldn't bother with such things but perhaps that's also why I have made it to the twilight of my career, with PNG being the place I have done most of my flying. Call me odd but I'm still alive in PNG.