When the 7am weather reports came in from the interior of
Borneo, things did not look good. At
each of the villages we needed to get to that day it had rained significantly
the night before, and in fact it was still raining at most of them. We had a fairly busy day scheduled, including
one medical evacuation request, but we had no choice but to delay our departure
and hope to get a report of better weather soon. Bad weather and mountainous terrain are two
things that should never be mixed in aviation.
At 8:30 we finally got a report that the rain was subsiding and decided
to launch off. From Tarakan it is about
a half hour flight to Malinau, which is the jumping off point to the interior
mountain villages of Borneo. From
Tarakan to Malinau the terrain is flat and full of wide meandering rivers and
rice fields. After Malinau the ground
rises to form the jungle-covered mountains of Borneo. We crossed over Malinau at a comfortable
7,500 feet enroute to our first stop in the mountains.
The Landscape from Tarakan to Malinau
Along this first leg of the trip the pilot
spent a good deal of the time on the HF radio talking to the different villages
we were scheduled to stop at that day.
Each village wanted to know how much weight we could take, and when we
might be arriving. He had to calculate
approximately when we would arrive at each point and approximately how much
fuel we would have burned by then, in order to determine how much weight we
could carry out of there. On top of that
he had to find out if all of the passengers were at each airstrip and ready to
go. If they were not ready we might be
more efficient by stopping somewhere else first. Finally, we had that medical evacuation to
think about. According to the sparse
information we received she was having abdominal pain and was described as
“relatively serious”. We thought about
going there to get her first, but that airstrip was still hidden under the rain
and clouds, and the grass airstrip was still wet, which isn’t a good thing. Braking effectiveness on short, wet grass can
be zero. We decided to push on to our
original first stop.
Weaving through the cotton balls on our way to the interior
After circling down
through a hole in the clouds we made it to the first village. The passengers were happy to see us and climbed
on board. After starting the engine
though it became clear that the weather had closed in around us in the last 10
minutes and it would be too risky to try to get out of there. So we shut down and waited. It was a good opportunity to go hang out with
the people there, hear a couple of their stories, and drink some “kopi susu”
(instant coffee mix with milk…like a latte!).
An hour and a half later we decided to give it another try. However, because of the long delay we decided
to go get the medical patient first…so our passengers had to wait in the
terminal for our return later that day.
It was a short, 15 minute hop over to the village to pick up the medical
patient. The grass was still wet, but
the weather was slowly clearing up all around us. As we taxied to a stop a group of perhaps
40-50 people walked slowly out to the airplane carrying a lady on a stretcher
of bamboo. They laid her under the wing
of the airplane and gathered around as the pastor of the village prayed for
her. She did not seem to be doing well
at all and was in a more serious condition than we were expecting. She seemed to be barely conscious as her face
was locked in a grimace of pain, and a constant low moan escaped her lips. The men carefully loaded her into the airplane,
lying her down, as her husband and young daughter climbed in the seats next to
her. The seriousness of her mother’s
condition was evident from the worry etched into the young daughter’s face as
she gently stroked her mother’s hair.
The pilot was faced with a tough decision at this point. In evaluating the weather he decided that we
needed to take off to the south.
However, taking off to the south would mean taking off with a tail wind
(a wind blowing down the runway from behind the airplane). Tailwinds can greatly reduce the performance
of an airplane and they must be handled with caution. As a result he had to ask 1 person to stay
behind. Reducing the load in the
airplane would give us the margin we needed to takeoff safely. One family member who had planned to
accompany his mother to the hospital would instead have to stay in the village
and wait for news about her via the radio.
As we took off and dodged clouds on the 30 minute flight to Malinau,
where an ambulance was waiting, I quietly whispered many prayers for our
passenger in the back. As I looked down
and saw nothing but unbroken jungle all the way to the horizon, I realized that
without this tiny little airplane to fly her out this woman would have had no
options for the medical care she needed.
I thanked the Lord for the privilege of being this lady’s lifeline that
day.
After that flight the rest of the day was a bit of a
whirlwind. We were 2 hours behind
schedule and still had 5 stops to make before heading back to Tarakan. I got to see the pilot switch into
“efficiency mode” as we shuttled people, motorcyles, mail, food, a generator,
and many other things between those interior villages. Finally, at 4:30 pm we took off for the 1
hour flight back to Tarakan. Even though
I had done nothing that day except observe my instructor pilot at work, I was
exhausted! Soon I will have the
privilege of carrying out the duties he did so well that day, and I am looking forward to it. I got to see firsthand how much
the people in the interior appreciate and rely on the service that we
provide. I got to see a desperately ill
woman receive the medical care she needed, and watch the joy in her daughter’s
eyes as she took her first airplane ride!
I am humbled by the great task ahead of me as I begin serving these
people with the airplane, and bringing them hope through a warm smile to a
nervous child on her first flight, a prayer said for a sick passenger, a chance
to share my testimony as we wait for the rain to stop, or however else God
chooses to use me here.
Waiting out the rain in the "MAF terminal"
Home again!
