Merged: APNG Twin Otter Missing

[Exaviator]

Hi Tinpis,

"I found keeping at least TWO back doors open worked for me
When this sort of thing happens at this level of the game, it makes you wonder, and wonder again how lucky you where."

You never know when the fickle hand of fate is going to point its bony finger at you and change your life for better or worse, but as for luck I think that we all have a hand determining it, largely based on the decisions that we make in life.

[blackhand]

Just landed back at Jacksons this afternoon.
Channel 9 in everyones face as I came out of the terminal.
Don't they just love it.

Word in the street is that wouldn't be such a big deal if only nationals involved.

And yes it appears as CFIT.

Will check at the Aero Club and Weigh Inn for more info

Cheers
Blackhand

[Torres]

Chainsaw. You missed one Cairbou prang at Tufi, the work of a (now) CASA manager!

[eagle 86]

Trojan et al,
First check my profile - I have no axe to grind. I currently train ADF pilots.
The ADF, aircrew included, are at the beck and call of the Government to go anywhere at any time to do what ever is required in peace and war. The current day ADF aircrew are extremely well trained, closely supervised and risk managed. Can you imagine the CH47 crews saying "sorry can't go to Afghanistan - haven't been there!" a place, I would suggest, that is a little more hostile than PNG both from the point of view of ambient conditions (DA, sandstorms so thick that you can't see your hand in front of your face) and a small matter of less than friendly locals armed with a bit more than bows and arrows.
Yes ADF aircraft do crash with distressing results - that's because, inter alia, the boundaries are further out there. I could suggest that there should be no pilot error accidents in the civvy world - but, hey I've been there, I know what commercial pressures, ego and pride can do!
I would have no hesitation in giving this and similar tasks to ADF aircrew.
GAGS
E86

[amos2]

Chimbu Chuck has said, and I quote...

"You DO NOT know that. I can tell you what they were NOT doing and that is tooling along in IMC and then whacked into 'a mountain' sticking up in front of them.

I do have an idea what MIGHT have happened because it has happened to me - I HAVE seen EXACTLY what they saw in their last seconds but I got away with it. THAT is why I WILL NOT be drawn into any more of your inane posts and why I won't do anything other than help people to understand the challenges they faced."

Do you think you might be "up yourself" a bit, Chuck?

[blackhand]

Tooling around in IMC

Spoke with the pilot who located the crash site.
And it was not Capt Inau.
The Twin Otter was definitely in IMC at the time, did a go around into the Kokoda Gap and then turned right while in the Gap.

Watched the local news at Aero Club, Simon Wild confirmed definitely 13 Souls on board and lost.
One no show which may have caused the confusion about the 12th pax.


Cheers
Blackhand

[Chimbu chuckles]

NO I don't think I am being up myself.

Many moons ago while crossing a gap (in a thankfully empty Twotter) at low level, in light rain, the gap closed out and as I turned away from it the drizzle turned instantly to cloud - I had heard that was possible but never really believed it. I found myself, within seconds, in IMC at a few 100' agl with higher terrain close and all around me - I pushed everything forward and pulled the nose up high to zoom climb turning towards where I knew lower terrain was, and roared up a ridge line (probably 30 degrees nose up) still in IMC with trees literally flicking past the wheels. I was pondering how I would stall into the trees, and wondering whether I would survive it, when the top of the ridge came into view (still IMC) and a pushed over the top and found myself in VMC again - and then I started shaking.

That is why I don't judge this crews actions or hypothesize about why they may have found themselves in IMC and why they hit the ground - because I have been there and know how quickly you can go from PNG 'normal ops' to dead.

What is also getting up my nose is gullibels assumptions that they had carried out some form of approach to Kokoda maybe using technology not designed for that - missed due not getting visual and then CFIT'd during subsequent 'procedural' manouvering. No one who has the experience he claims to have would even use the language he uses - they'd know that there are no procedures around a grass airstrip in a mountain valley.

The crash site is < 1nm from Isurava - they couldn't get there unless via the Kokoda Gap - its impossible to crash where they did if they have already been over Kokoda at low level. They are reported as saying, via HF, that they were descending toward Kokoda and then that they are climbing again due weather - and then they died. They were tracking via the Gap. Pilots who have flown over the crash site say the aircraft was definately 'nose high' when they impacted - as in a zoom/full power climb.

I have been there but was luckier than they were - not better, just luckier.

[amos2]

So when you were flying the SLF around NG all those years ago...

did you brief them that that it could go from "normal ops to dead" rather quickly?

[Pinky the pilot]

amos2; Re your last post. You are way, way out of line. Pull your head in!!

[P51D]

I was in PNG when the Caribou went missing and around that time a few C206's disappeared in quick succession, some never to be found again. Chuck is providing a very good narrative of what it's like and what confronted this crew. It is very hostile country, as I found doing the start of my licence, and not for the faint hearted. Come out of PNG and you're not bad at it. Don't know whether you've been there Amos2 but if not you are definately in the Obie category. Chuck up himself? - you are a dork Amos!

[bia botal]

Pinky if you read some other post by amos2 you will work out pretty quickly that he is a obnoxious moron who does little more that fire off snide remarks at people because he is incapable of anything close to constructive comments.

[Wiley]

Chimbu, I have a very similar story to tell. To Obie and others, who have no experience of the rapidly – and I mean rapidly – changing weather conditions in the PNG Highlands, here’s an example, not unlike Chimbu’s tale above, where, through no fault of my own, I went closer to meeting my Maker than I care to admit.

I’ve cut and pasted from an as yet (and probably never to be) published account of some of my experiences in PNG. The aircraft we were flying was an UH-1H Iroquois.

...we were operating out of Mendi in the Western Highlands during the ‘Gammon Famine’.

We were taking food supplies from Mendi out to the villages on the West Irian border where the famine had struck hardest, (or if you want to be cynical, where the coming independence and politics dictated maximum aid had to be seen to be given to the local population).

On that particular sortie, we were carrying a load of kau kau, the leafy tuber vegetable that was the staple food for people in the area. Kau kau is a type of sweet potato and it contains a lot of water, so it could be pretty heavy. It was to be the last flight of the day, and the usual afternoon thunderstorms and heavy cloud cover were very much in evidence.

My co-pilot (in the left seat) was flying the aircraft as we crossed the saddle of the Mendi Gap heading West. There was a lot of cloud about, but mostly blue sky immediately above and ahead of us, although the clouds were pretty heavily banked up against the high ridge line immediately to our left – (i.e., very much ‘situation normal’ for the Southern Highlands at that time of day). We were carrying a pretty heavy load – I think it had been yet another ‘bouncing down the runway’ running takeoff, which were pretty much the norm out of Mendi if carrying kau kau – so we passed through the saddle quite low, maybe only fifty feet above the tops of the trees. (The terrain leading up to the Gap on its Eastern side is relatively steep, but drops away quite gently to the West.)

As we crossed the lowest point in the saddle, we both noticed an enormous bright orange orchid in the top of the tree that was immediately below us. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say it was three feet (30 centimetres) across.

It was only moments after we had passed the orchid that it happened – like a breaker at a surf beach and in about as long as it takes to say it, the clouds on the ridge line to our left just came tumbling down the hillside on to us, all the way down into the treetops. One moment we were in the clear – the next, in the gloop.

We were still quite close to the hillside to our left, so a turn to the right was our only option. XXXX kicked the aircraft into a steep turn and handed over to me, because being on the inside of the turn, I had a clearer view of the treetops. He would have been only three or four feet higher than I was in the turn, but it made a difference in how much he could see of the trees. We were in very thick cloud, and I flying on instruments, but with one eye out the right window so I could stay visual with the treetops, which were only vaguely visible and wreathed in cloud themselves, I kept the aircraft in a very steep turn as I attempted to get back the way we had come.

I hadn’t noted our exact course as we’d crossed the Gap, but I was very much aware that I really needed to turn onto the reciprocal to our original track, because the terrain rose quite sharply either side of the saddle.

As a last resort, if the turn back didn’t get us back below the cloud base, we could pull pitch and climb until we broke out on top, but at that time of day, whether we would get above the clouds was by no means guaranteed, and, I forget now what the lowest safe altitude was in that area, but it was considerably higher than 10,000 feet, and we had no oxygen. We also didn’t carry enough fuel to have instrument flight reserves – and from Mendi, it was a very long way to any navigation aids we could use to do an instrument approach. So, all in all, staying visual was by far the preferred option – although this was a lot easier said than done.

We’d just rolled out of the turn on what was more or less the reciprocal track when I saw the big orange orchid in my chin window and the moment we passed over it, I dropped the pitch lever and started a descent. We broke clear of cloud almost immediately and went straight back to Mendi and called it a day.

It needs to be said that most of the civil operators flying C206s of similar did not have the "pull pitch and get above the LSA" option available to them.

[Chimbu chuckles]

Nope I never did. I credited the people who sat behind me with enough brains to know they were no longer in Kansas.

I happen to believe the overall safety record in PNG is very good - considering the reality of day to day operations there. It just isn't possible to judge PNG operations by Australian standards.

[Wiley]

More from my probably never to be published recollections of PNG flying.

, ...the Highlands of New Guinea presented some of the most demanding and challenging flying conditions likely to be encountered anywhere in the world. A deadly combination of very high, incredibly rugged terrain and treacherous weather that could deteriorate dramatically quite literally within minutes had led to the deaths of very many pilots over the years since aircraft had first started operating in the New Guinea Highlands before World War Two in support of the large gold discoveries in the area around Wau and Bulolo.

The country was so liberally littered with aircraft wrecks that pilots sometimes navigated from crash site to crash site as they made their way from one remote destination to another. To make life easier for searchers looking for a newly crashed aircraft, known wrecks were marked with large yellow crosses, and despite the very large number of known wrecks, in 1972 there were still over one thousand(!) crashed Allied aircraft scattered about the country that had never been located. That’s 1,000 Allied aircraft and does not include an unknown but large number of Japanese aircraft that never returned to their bases, many more of them lost, (just as it was for the Americans and the Australians during World War 2), to the weather and mechanical failure rather than to enemy action.

[Massey058]

I happen to believe the overall safety record in PNG is very good - considering the reality of day to day operations there. It just isn't possible to judge PNG operations by Australian standards.

Agreed. When you compare it to across the border. In Papua province alone this year there have already been 3 CFIT accidents, 2 from the same company!

[peuce]

My observation from the TV News ...

Those Blackhawk drivers seem to be doing a pretty good job of it at the crash site.

[hoggsnortrupert]

What are you Amos!:

Obnoxious:

AMOS: So when you were flying the SLF around NG all those years ago...

did you brief them that that it could go from "normal ops to dead" rather quickly?

Matey you have no IDEA, none whatsoever:

Chimbu, I am impressed with your narrative, very accurate, born from experience, always good to read.

Chr's
H/Snort.

[poteroo]

Risk Management

Waaay back in my day, (60's), pax knew the risks, and they were willing to take them - because it was a long walk as the alternative. And we didn't have time to discuss risk because we were busy doing the job we were trained for. Nowadays, society seems to want every little clause of a contract spelled out in excruciating detail - because they fundamentally want someone else to blame for any untoward event.

One of my early checkies noted..... it really helps up here to have x-ray vision and big bxlls, but for we ordinary pilots - just be cautious..... and take more fuel ....

Yes, PNG isn't for the faint hearted, neither is it for the foolhardy.

poteroo (STOL,SPAC 1967-70)

[tipsy2]

Don't worry too much about poor old Amos2, every year about this time he comes back to pprune to vent his spleen and make a few posts. He then mercifully disappears for another 12 months. Something about August gets up his nose and then he gets up everbody elses.

tipsy............................

[autoflight]

I think that many readers will not understand that seasoned PNG pilots have a contantly changing definition of safe visual flight, depending on terrain, weather, time of day, escape routes and a gut feeing that tells him/her if it is better to give it away for another time. And it doesn't have too much to do with VMC/IMC definitions.

If we allow commercial or competitive pressures or any other reason to degrade our established definition of safe visual flight, the safety of the flight is no longer within our ordinary minimum accepted conditions. The object is to get the job done without crossing that line.