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Fateful flight in Papua Newguinea

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It was to be an uneventful flight from Kokoda east to Madang at PNG’s East Coast. The weather was fine, the plane overhauled and the two pilots were eager to get home after four months in the bush

 

They had been warned that the fuel at Kokoda was of questionable quality, contaminated with water, but they had refueled the plane here frequently, so brushed any warning aside.

 

After a wonderful last night with their friends around a large camp fire they had retreated to their tent in order to get some sleep prior to their flight.

 

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Slowly they gain speed

2015-10-19_0-13-28-567.jpg

 

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Then, some two hours into the flight they experience engine trouble. Was there this time too much water in the fuel?

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The pilot remembers a small dirt strip near an abandoned village not too far away. They urgently need to reach it

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They are too high, so they decide to take a look first, make a turn and try it from the other side

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That looks damn short for their plane, but they run out of options fast

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After they have turned, they try their luck again. Both know they have only one attempt. There isn’t enough power left in the stricken engine to get them up again

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All is well, but with no flaps to deploy, they come in way too fast. And they are brutally aware of it

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It’s all over

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Some ten years later an expedition team was looking for another plane that had just perished in this area. And by accident they spotted the wreckage of the old Junkers 33. No remains of the pilots could be found. The team’s tracker mentioned that he had heard from a distant uncle that many many moons ago a passing tribe had spotted the plane already…

 

 2015-10-19_1-13-47-338.jpg

Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwinds

My specs: AMD Radeon RX6700XT, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, 34" monitor, screen resolution: 2560x1080

Beautiful story of a crash site...every ship wreck and crash site has a story...very nicely done!

 

HLJAMES

Great shots and story!

Regards,

Hugo Bravo

LPPT

Nice bush scenery.

Intel i-9 13900KF @ 6.0 Ghz, MSI RTX 4090 Suprim Liquid X 24GB, MSI MAG CORELIQUID C360, MSI Z790 A-PRO WIFI, MSI MPG A1000G 1000W, G.SKILL 48Gb@76000 MHz DDR5, MSI SPATIUM M480 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB, Windows 11 Pro Ghost Spectre x64

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the day and night to visit violence on those who would do us harm”.

I enjoyed this :smile: Thank You

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Patrick

  • Author

Thank you very much, gents

Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwinds

My specs: AMD Radeon RX6700XT, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, 34" monitor, screen resolution: 2560x1080

beautiful scenery.

 

nebojsa

Bernd, these are awesome shots and a well told story!

Reminds me to wonderful flights around PNG and Solomons with C-47 and P-38 using FS2002... although with a more positive finish.

   Harald Geyer
   Gründer der Messerschmitt Freunde Dresden v. V.

lYI9iQV.jpg

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