Humbug day

Some days flying in PNG it’s plain sailing; others you encounter some humbugs. I had one particular humbug-full day recently!

The planned programme was Hagen - Hesalibi - Balimo - Daru - Balimo - Kiunga. I managed to depart early - even receiving the following WhatsApp message from our flight following team:

I arrived at Hesalibi to pick up an aerial health patrol team that were to be dropped off there by helicopter. I hadn’t heard the helicopter pilot on the radio, so was prepared to have to wait a while. I asked the locals if they could give me a bit of a tour of their village. The helicopter arrived about an hour later and had to make three landings: one to drop off his fuel drum for the return journey, and two more to bring the team from their village location another ten minutes’ flight time away.

The two hour delay meant that the rest of my programme was going to be tight.

The health patrol team finally arrived

I had just arrived in Balimo when my phone rang - the bookings team had received a medevac request and asked if I could pick up a patient on my way from Balimo to Kiunga. I told them I wasn’t sure because I knew there was more humbug lying ahead: I was supposed to load a 130 kg vaccine fridge into the plane from Balimo to Kiunga and I had no idea how long that would take. I asked them to look into whether it could be done the following morning (dreading what that might mean for my planned return time to Hagen) and got cracking with paperwork and passengers heading to Daru.

One of my Balimo passengers was a patient transfer. She was able to walk to the aircraft, with assistance, but she was clearly not well. I made sure she was comfortable in one of the back seats by the door, checked the seat belts of the other passengers, gave the mandatory safety briefing, and took off for Daru. On arrival the agent called for the ambulance and I decided to wait until it arrived, since her ailment involved ‘women’s issues’ and I knew the (male) ground agent would not be willing to help support her. I helped the lady off the plane and gave her my plastic folding step to sit on. My backload passengers were brought to the aircraft, but the ambulance still hadn’t come. It was now impossible for me to do the other medevac flight today, so I called the bookings team back and informed them. Finally the ambulance arrived, I helped her climb into it, returned my step to the plane, and took off for Balimo. 

At Balimo five men were ready to load the fridge. I quickly removed two of the seats to make space and they lifted it in. Thankfully it turned out to be quite straightforward to strap down. Then my phone rang again - it was the bookings team, informing me that another operator was going to do the medevac, so that was one less thing to worry about! They also told me that there was a planned fuel strike the next day, so to refuel for the next day’s programme on arrival in Kiunga, which I would normally have done anyway.

Flying to Kiunga the plane was relatively light, but I had a 30 kt headwind so it was pretty slow going. Since I was the only person on board, I decided to climb to 12,000 ft and fitted my oxygen line. (Any higher than 10,000 ft with passengers you need to limit the time to less than 30 minutes due to oxygen requirements.) The headwind at that altitude was only 10 kts and I managed to make reasonable time. 

I landed in Kiunga and the ground staff called for the fuel truck. However, the operator decided to refuel three other aircraft before he came to me, which meant I had to wait another hour. At least it was the end of the day and I could relax!