IAN LOFTUS | Ian Loftus History & Travel Blog

PERTH - This week marks the 45th anniversary of the RAAF’s worst peacetime air disaster, the crash of a Caribou transport aircraft from 38 Squadron in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province on 28 August 1972.

With 29 on board (three RAAF crew and 26 passengers) the aircraft disappeared en-route from Lae to Port Moresby. Only four of those on board survived, all cadets.

Most of the passengers were PNG high school cadets from the 35th Cadet Battalion returning home from their annual cadet camp in Lae. They were accompanied by an Australian Army officer and a cadet officer, also from Australia.

Despite an intensive search by RAAF, Army and civilian aircraft, the Caribou remain undiscovered for several days due to its remote location and extensive tree canopy.

A searching Army Sioux helicopter located several survivors who had walked from the crash site. RAAF Iroquois were called, and the survivors were able to lead crew to the crash site, which was near the crest of a ridge.

BOB CLELAND

“JULIE, have you got a curved needle and some strong thread?” I asked.

“I think so, I’ll look. Why do you want it?”

“Because I want to sew up a DC3.”

“Oh…. You want to do what?”

While Julie rummaged in her sewing kit, I quickly told her the story.

“There. Will that do?” I wasn’t surprised that she found a needle, living on an outstation, Julie had just about everything associated with sewing.

It was 1959 and Julie and I lived in Balimo, a remote government post about 500 kilometres west of Port Moresby.

Cairns Post

CAIRNS businesses have lashed out at Qantas for abandoning direct Cairns-Papua New Guinea flights.

Qantas announced last month that, due to high demand for flights to Bali, it would be reducing its domestic flights in regional areas.

This includes shifting its Cairns-Port Moresby flights to Brisbane-Port Moresby from the end of October in order to better serve the business market.

GARRY ROCHE

AMBULLUA is an isolated mission station in the upper Jimi valley in Jiwaka Province; about five hours walk from Kol, the nearest government station.  

And if you want to walk down to the Wahgi Valley from Ambullua, you should allow yourself two days.

Because of this isolation, the Catholic priest who established the mission at Ambullua, Fr Joe McDermott, built and maintained a bush airstrip.

The approach to the strip was not great, pilots had to manoeuvre their aircraft with skill to touch down safely on the not-too-long and uphill runway where, like many of PNG’s airstrips, they could only land from one direction.

ROB PARER

The remains of the B-25 Mitchell bomber, ' Feather Merchant', at Aitape High School

AITAPE - Over many years, American billionaire David Tallichet (1922-2007) was interested in the World War II aircraft left behind in the Sepik.

Tallichet, who made his fortune as ‘The Father of the Themed Restaurant’, had piloted bombers over Europe in World War II and his post-war hobby was restoring some of these aircraft.

CHRIS OVERLAND

DEPENDING upon whom you choose to believe, the first flight by a powered aircraft in Australia took place either in Sydney during 1909 or in Melbourne on 18 March 1910, when the famous escape artist, Harry Houdini, deftly flew his French made Voisin biplane around the appropriately named Digger's Rest.

At the time, flying was regarded largely as a novelty because almost no-one could foresee just how the flimsy, unstable and often lethally dangerous aircraft of that era could be used for any commercial purpose.

Dangerous and impracticable as it seemed, aviation progressed rapidly, especially during the First World War, which saw huge advances in the speed, power and endurance of aircraft.

DANIEL KUMBON

MY dream of soaring into the blue skies of Kandep in the belly of an aeroplane began with the recruitment of young men straight from the village to work on rubber, copra and cocoa plantations on the coast.

How I wished to look down upon the two great swamplands of Kandep with their many lakes and rivers teeming with wildlife, then disappear over the mountains to distant places.

I am sure, had I been old enough, I would have allowed myself to be recruited under the indentured labour scheme that operated during the colonial period.

OXFORD BUSINESS GROUP

THE aviation sector in Papua New Guinea is set for a major shake-up, with government plans to privatise a stake in the national flag carrier, Air Niugini, later this year.

This should support Port Moresby’s growing role as a regional air traffic hub, as new routes are added and more airlines extend services to the capital.

Last September the government announced it would offer a stake of around 50% in Air Niugini to private investors, a plan confirmed earlier this year by prime minister Peter O'Neill, who said the sale would begin towards the end of 2015.

PNG TODAY

A young, Papua New Guinean female pilot has made history by becoming the first woman to gain command on Dash 8 aircraft under Air Niugini’s pilot cadet program.

Captain Beverly Pakii’s achievement is the first for the airline since Air Niugini’s pilot cadet program started in the 1970s.

From mixed Enga and Morobe parentage, the 29 year old operated her first commercial flight from Port Moresby to Lihir in New Ireland and on to Tokua airport in East New Britain and back to Port Moresby.

Air Niugini CEO Simon Foo congratulated Captain Pakii saying the airline invests a lot of money and resources into training pilots and engineers every year.

“Captain Pakii has come through the system holding a very high standard throughout,” Mr Foo said. “Her dedication, commitment and humble demeanour to achieve command is demonstrated in her professional conducts in all facets.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

BACK in my kiap days it was quite common in the more remote districts for long patrols to be resupplied by airdrop. I have been on both the dropping and receiving sides of such operations.

The supplies most commonly dropped were food, usually rice and tinned fish or meat. At other times it might have been medical supplies like penicillin or specialist articles such as radio batteries and ammunition.

To get the food ready for a drop required opening the rice bags, which weighed around 20 kilograms each, and distributing half a dozen tins among the grains of rice. The bag was then tied shut before being placed in another bag, which was also tied shut but with room for movement.

KEITH JACKSON

Living on the Edge of the Universe: Paradise can be Hell! by Richard Broomhead, Joshua Books, 256 pp, $29.95, ISBN: 978-0992300142. Also available from Amazon here as an e-book

THE last time I sat down and had a beer with Richard Broomhead was 50 years ago and he was flying nothing bigger than a LandRover.

But he told me then, as he had before whenever we met, that his heart was set on buying a DH84, a twin-engined biplane, at which time he would establish a charter airline business based in Kundiawa.

PACNEWS

AMONG women entrepreneurs from around the Pacific region who met in Fiji last week was business woman Ruth Undi from Papua New Guinea’s resource rich area of Ialibu in the Southern Highlands.

Ruth, 42 likes to call herself a ‘grassroots’ mother and she is the first Papua New Guinean woman to own and operate an aviation company, Niugini Aviation, which has a fleet of three planes.

With no aviation background, Ruth bought her first plane in 2011 because she saw the need to service the remote areas not accessible by road.

“That’s when I bought my first 206 six seater aircraft from the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

EMMANUEL SOLWAI MAMBEI

WHEN I was about eight, nine and ten years old in the early 1990s, mum taught at Lumi Community School.

The school catered to children of public servants at Lumi station and children from villages surrounding the station.

Back then, Lumi was a fully-fledged district of West Sepik Province. It is now just a sub district, Aitape being the headquarters of the restructured Aitape-Lumi District.

So it was that our home was right at the station, the centrepiece of which was the Lumi airstrip. The airstrip ran right through the middle of Lumi station, with houses on either side.

MARY MENNIS MBE

THE Parer family, originally from Alella in Spain, were the anchor of the Catalan community in Australia for 50 years.

The first brother to leave Spain was Josep, who decided to migrate to South America in 1851, following his sense of adventure and eye for business. He left Montevideo in Uruguay on board the Alabama and landed in Australia in 1855.

A year later, his half-brother Francisco joined him and they started breeding poultry in Petersham near Sydney, but the business was not successful. They decided to move to Bendigo looking for gold and finally settled on the banks of the Yarra River, a tent town to cope with the rapid expansion of Melbourne during the gold rush.

It was their entrepreneurial character and perseverance, and also a spark of luck, which triggered the start of the Parer Empire in Melbourne. In less than 40 years they invested in more than 30 hotels and restaurants. And they are believed to be the first people to commercialise meat pies in Australia.

Josep and Francisco were the pioneers of the Parer dynasty in Australia. Seven of their brothers and sisters, nephews and friends of the family joined them, which is where the family tree gets complicated.

BERNIE LEIGHTON | Airline Reporter

I HAVE now flown Air Niugini (airline code PX) more than most Americans ever will. The thing is no one I knew remotely well enough at the time worked for Air Niugini, which is rare for me.

However, I did know plenty of people who work for their fiercest competitor –Airlines PNG (code CG). Clearly I needed to take a flight.

After a week of in-country planning, I had selected a destination – Goroka, a small town in the highlands of central PNG. It is one of the highest airports in the country at 5,200 feet. It was also a reasonable airfare and crewed by people who were extremely friendly to an American journalist.

BERNIE LEIGHTON | Airline Reporter

WHILE Port Moresby may not be a holiday treat, it is certainly better than it has ever been since independence. But if you want a tropical holiday, you are going to have to leave the ravenous guard dogs and car jackings of Moresby behind.

Being a huge World War II nerd, I figured my best bet was to head out to either Kavieng (on New Ireland) or Kokopo/Rabaul on New Britain). Both these islands were invaded by the Japanese in 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But first I have to tell you about the fun one can have at the domestic terminal of Jacksons International Airport.

BERNIE LEIGHTON | Airline Reporter

SO, YOU’RE dumb enough to decide you want to go to Port Moresby on holiday? Well, first off, you are pretty dumb. Do you know how dangerous Port Moresby is?

The American government clearly knows; they’re building a new fortress-embassy on the highway to the airport. This embassy construction site also houses all its workers behind three 20-foot high fences and a small contingent of Marines.

Having said that, it is still safer than Lae! So, if you have to pick between the two…

It’s not an organised sort of crime, or resistance. It’s something more like a zombie movie. One target sees an opportunity and then, almost like a wave, the rest follows. From what I’ve seen, cricket bats are a popular weapon of late.

US NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY

THE  US NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY (NRL) will lead a team of scientists and engineers to fly a Multi-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (MB-SAR) to gather information to aid in the search and recovery of unaccounted aircraft losses in Papua New Guinea during World War II.

The US Pacific Command and Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is sponsoring the mission.

It is believed many of the downed aircraft sites are located in the Northern, Central, and Morobe Provinces in austere terrain under triple canopy foliage. The goal of the mission is to highlight the effectiveness of remote sensing information to aid JPAC search and recovery efforts.

AIR CARGO WORLD

QANTAS WILL INTRODUCE a weekly freight service between Australia and Papua New Guinea from this coming Saturday.

The flight between Brisbane, Cairns and Port Moresby will be operated by a Boeing 737-300F (pictured), offering 15 tonnes of cargo capacity each way.

Qantas Freight executive manager Lisa Brock said the export market between Australia and PNG is strong and the new freighter service will provide much needed capacity on the route.

LUC CITRINOT | Travel Daily News

INDONESIA’S NATIONAL FLAG CARRIER, Garuda Indonesia, is looking to link Jakarta to Port Moresby with regular commercial services from August.

The Indonesian airline is seeking to serve untapped markets in the Asia Pacific region and this will be the first direct air connection from Moresby to Jakarta.

AIR COMMODORE GORDON STEEGE DSO DFC
As told to Bill Brown

NEW TO THE SEAGULL flying boats, I first took a couple of local flights around the Port Moresby area.

These included the hairy experience of flying Commander Hunt, who headed a small naval surveying detachment, delivering some mail to Yule Island at low level over offshore reefs in a strong south-easterly, when the Seagull appeared to be going as fast sideways as forward.

Then my CO, ‘Alex’ Alexander, asked if I would like to take the Seagull down to Samarai.

I jumped at this, and with a Sergeant Navigator, Wireless Operator and Engineer Fitter we had an enjoyable straight and level flight on a beautiful day, perhaps three hours at 90 knots, along the coast to Samarai.

AIR COMMODORE GORDON STEEGE DSO DFC
As told to Bill Brown

IN SEPTEMBER 1939, HAVING GRADUATED from Point Cook in Victoria in June 1938, I was a Flying Officer in No 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron at Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Station Richmond NSW, doing my tour as Adjutant.

I was in the officer's mess with other colleagues when the mess president came in. He was a Wing Commander, perhaps in his early forties. The RAAF was more formal in those days and we all stood for him.

It turned out the occasion was to hear Australian prime minister Robert Menzies “melancholy duty” announcement on the wireless that Australia was at war with Germany.

Next morning I was told to go to Station Headquarters and report to a Flight Lieutenant Alexander, then on the staff of the station commander, Group Captain Hipolyte Ferdinand de la Rue.

United Press International | UPI.com

BAE SYSTEMS HAS SIGNED a contract to provide advanced flight training to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force.

The contract builds on a 2011 agreement to provide Papua New Guinean student pilots with basic flying training at BAE's Australian facility at Tamworth City Airport in New South Wales.

Students soon will start an advanced 18-month training course to progress to the next stage of their flying careers.

“We are looking forward to extending and developing the relationship with PNG by providing its defence force with the highest standard of flying instruction," said BAE General Manager Aviation Solutions, John Quaife.

The air operations element of the PNGDF has a small number of light and rotary wing aircraft that support the army with logistics, resupply and medical evacuation as well helping with civilian disaster relief.

The air element also supports army patrols along the country's 700km border with the restive Indonesian province of Papua.

BAE's flight training facility at Tamworth is based around a six-year, $86 million deal signed in 2011 with the Royal Australian Air Force.

The PNG pilots’ courses began in January last year and the first students graduated in mid-2012.