A friend of mine once said that bad luck comes in threes. Well I think I just got that today although it was more than just bad luck.
It was an eye opener. A reminder of how fleeting life is a reminder that I needed to start trusting God again.
I set my alarm at 4:30 am this morning enough to eat a quick breakfast, take a shower and prepare for my plane trip to Mt Hagen, a major city in PNG up in the Western Highlands Province. This time I wasn’t taking an Air Niugini flight but that of a second level airline, Airlines PNG (left photo). Nervous about flying in a smaller aircraft I tried to convince myself that everything will be alright. Besides what’s 45 minutes of flying time.
Anyway what I thought was an uneventful day turned out to be one of the longest days of my life. The saga started with our Land Cruiser having a very bad case of tire wiggle that acted up each time the driver tried to slow down. Anyway we eventually managed to crawl our way to the airport 30 mins before the flight’s scheduled departure which was 7am. However, the check-in counter was still closed and there was no ground crew in sight to inform passengers of the flight status. We waited and waited and eventually, lo and behold, the counter opened at around 8:30, an hour and a half after the ETD. Well now I know why it’s called estimated time of departure. It’s just an estimate!! After the ground crew loaded everything from sugarcane stalks to picnic umbrella to sweet potato, the plane finally took off at 1030am. However there was another surprise in store. The flying time wasn’t going to be 45 minutes, but 5 hours. Yes, there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, 5 long hours.
Planes serving commercial routes in PNG are quite few so that most planes do several stop overs, like buses do. In our case, instead of stopping by Mt Hagen first, it was to stop at the farthest point instead so that ours was going to be the last stop. First stop was going to be Tabubil (left photo), a mining town right smack in the middle of a valley, in the middle of nowhere. Tabubil has earned a reputation of being one of the most dangerous plane destinations in PNG that a friend of mine who has been there once has vowed never to return again. He likened his experience to that of riding a flying coffin. In Tabubil, a slight drizzle and in a few minutes the whole valley is covered by a thick fog. Aside from this, to be able to reach the mining town, one has to pass through a high mountain range teeming with deadly air pockets which is almost always covered with rain clouds.
As we were approaching Tabubil the inevitable happened. The plane dipped and tossed and dipped some more that for a moment I thought I was going to die. However, after a few minutes of struggle, to our relief, the pilot managed to land the plane smoothly. I thought everything was going to be alright as we took off to our next stop which was Kiunga, in the Western Province. Kiunga is along the banks of the mighty Fly River, one of largest and longest rivers in PNG. But since the flight to Kiunga from Tabubil was only 20 minutes, the plane had to fly low and that’s when we flew right in the middle of a storm. And this time it was worse. A bolt of lightning hit the plane twice causing it to shudder and after a few seconds the plane dipped and tossed and dipped and tossed again for what seemed like forever. Inside the plane everyone was crying, even grown men. We were all shaken and stirred. I said my prayers and prepared myself for the worse. I just closed my eyes and waited for the end to come. But then apparently God had other plans.
It took another hour and a half before I finally reached my final destination which was Mt Hagen. And although lacking sleep and exhausted, thoughts of what could have been kept me awake and caused me to break down each time the thought would cross my mind. For the past few weeks I have come face to face with danger; from a close encounter with a highway hold-up, to a potentially deadly magnitude 6.7 earthquake, and now a close brush with a plane crash. But then I am still here. Well I think somebody up there must love me.
p.s. So what about the trip back? Watch for my next post.
A friend of mine once said that bad luck comes in threes. Well I think I just got that today although it was more than just bad luck. It was an eye opener. A reminder of how fleeting life is a reminder that I needed to start trusting God again. 
Planes serving commercial routes in PNG are quite few so that most planes do several stop overs, like buses do. In our case, instead of stopping by Mt Hagen first, it was to stop at the farthest point instead so that ours was going to be the last stop. First stop was going to be Tabubil (left photo), a mining town right smack in the middle of a valley, in the middle of nowhere. Tabubil has earned a reputation of being one of the most dangerous plane destinations in PNG that a friend of mine who has been there once has vowed never to return again. He likened his experience to that of riding a flying coffin. In Tabubil, a slight drizzle and in a few minutes the whole valley is covered by a thick fog. Aside from this, to be able to reach the mining town, one has to pass through a high mountain range teeming with deadly air pockets which is almost always covered with rain clouds. 
1 comment:
Yam says "scary" when she is to close the gate on a dark night. A US pilot who visited Yam last year described as "scary" his storm-ridden trip somewhere in Guam en route to the Philippines. I guess yours is "scary" at more than intensity 6.7.
Thank God you are blogging about your flight now.
Post a Comment