When I wrote “Hazardous Duty” (Flying, May 2005), I was learning about missionary aviation but had never actually been to the mission field. Everything I wrote came from descriptions and accident reports written by others. That has all changed. Last month I had a chance to travel to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Papua, Indonesia, to give my Preventing Human Error seminar to missionary pilots, mechanics and other personnel serving in that area. While I was there, I had an opportunity to fly along with missionary pilots on typical missions.
I flew in a King Air from Port Moresby to Goroka, PNG, and then on to Vanimo, followed by a short trip in a Cessna Caravan to Sentani, in Indonesia. I flew in a Bell Jet Ranger from the Interface education center near Goroka to the Aiyura strip serving the Ukarumpa missionary center. A flight in a Cessna 206 out of Aiyura gave me a chance to see some of the mountain airstrips in that area. At one point we landed at Owena at an elevation of 5,200 feet. It was a rough 1,200-foot strip with a 15-degree slope located on the side of a mountain with a vertical cliff at the top of the strip. The strip chart noted that it is “slippery when wet.”
