So, many of you think Papua is a dangerous place to work. It’s probably because of the TV show that was filmed in Papua a while back called “The worst place to be a pilot”. If you haven’t watched it, I recommend you watch it when you are bored. It will keep you entertained.
It’s very true that Papua is not the safest place to live and work in terms of politics, safety in general, and individual differences in behaviour. However, the company I work for has been in Papua for a long time and the locals know our operations very well. I normally take selfies with kids in the villages, the local parents love it.
But as we all know, aviation's number #1 rule is “Know your rules” which would be my best advice to work and live safely.
In this blog post, I will talk about some challenges we face and yet, these things will fill your day with laughter and give you unforgettable memories.
1. Runway with wrong runway number displayed.
There’s one airstrip that we stopped going to for a while because they started paving the runway - which was an impressive movement for Papuans. After 4 months of waiting for the runway to be paved and also be “certified” to fly in and out again, it was finally approved by "someone". When we flew there, we found the runway had the wrong runway number displayed. We were approaching on final runway 27 (that was what our compass indicated), the number we saw on the runway just after the threshold was 09! We had to make a note on the internal company airstrip guide book that “Runway labelled 09 but is actually 27”
2. Naked Passenger!
I love seeing these passengers. They are not completely naked naked as I cannot see their man bits. (Not that I am looking!) They dress in a Koteka which covers the male genitalia in some indigenous cultures of the Papuan Island. Not only older men but also little boys are wearing a Koteka in some villages. Just wipe your seat before you sit.
3. 5-year-old “infants”
By law, the term “infant” applies to young children who have not reached their second birthday and they do not require a single seat. They can just sit on the lap of their parents, which also means they can fly for free. So, Papuans know it’s free, despite the size of their children. One time, I found one boy sitting on his mum’s lap uncomfortably. When I asked the boy how old he is, he said “5”. When I asked the mum the same question, she said “1”.
….. Go figure!
4. Military personnel opening your cockpit door
As I mentioned earlier, Papua is not the safest place to live. At some airports, there are fully guarded military personnel at the airport in case of people fighting or war even. Military personnel might look scary because they walk around with guns. But, my number 1 life rule is "If you are nice to them, they are nice to you.” Sometimes, they open the cockpit door for you with a beautiful smile and put the ladder down so that I can climb down. That just makes your day!
5. Weather reports like this: “1M visibility” / Cavok weather with FEW cloud 1300ft / Weather info “Hot”
This will give you a laugh. Some small airports that we go to have an ATC tower with someone who gives us the weather report. The “weather report” they use is often from Jakarta which is miles and miles away, which means it’s not accurate. They would rather read out false information to us on the radio than just look outside their window, which is what we need. We had one lady who told us the runway has 1M visibility. (not even 1KM) but when we got there it was nice and clear.
Often times, they normally say it’s CAVOK but than also say CLOUD FEW 1300ft. I don’t think they understand what CAVOK means. When you are flying in Papua, just remember to simply look outside to check the weather!
6. Pigs, chickens, and dogs on the runway
This is probably the best reason why we have someone at the tower. On final, they give us a piece of information about the runway condition. They are not completely useless! The locals always make sure there are no stray animals on the runway which can be very dangerous if we hit one.
Another important reason we shouldn’t hit an animal is that Pigs are very important to Papuans. Pigs are taken care of like their babies in their culture. So, imagine if we hit a pig, we have to apologise and give them lots of money for saying sorry. Not so much for dogs. But still, it is nice not to hit them.
7. What is a seat belt? Something you eat?
The biggest challenge of my job is this. When there’s no ground crew available, it’s my job to check passengers have their seat belts on. I have to make sure and tell them to put seat belts on. If they don’t know how I will have to do it for them or show them how it's done. We have 12 seats. That's 12 seat belts to help for every flight!
I had one Papuan lady who couldn’t undo her seat belt when we landed. She wasn’t getting off the plane. Instead, she tried so hard to get out of seat belt without unbuckling it. It was hilarious to watch her trying. She gave me an evil look when she was getting off though.
8. Taking off their shoes before getting into the plane.
This happened to me once. There was a little boy who was boarding. He literally took his shoes off before he got in the plane. I wasn’t sure what I should do with the shoes outside! It’s part of Indonesian culture that they take their shoes off before entering the house. But, still!
9. Passenger sitting on the floor, no problem!
Papuans love sitting on the ground. When I entered the cabin to check passengers and seat belts, there was one guy just comfortably sitting on the floor in the cabin. I told him to move to one seat because it was the seat for him. But, he said "No, I like sitting here. You go ahead. " Ahh... excuse me, Mr. NO.
10. My hand carry is my machete. My check-in baggage is my shotgun.
Papuans carry their machetes in flight. But, Don’t worry! It’s not to harm people in flight. It’s just their accessory item like phones or wallets. They use it to go for a walk in the jungle and to cut some grass on their path or to cut some trees to get some fruits. The funny thing is you see lots of little kids have one of those. It’s quite funny to see little ones with big knives!
If Papuans want to carry guns which is also common, they must empty the gun to 'check-in' as baggage and only 12 bullets allowed per person in flight by law. The gun needs to be stored separately to other baggage. You will see lots of guns when you are flying in Papua!
11. Tissues in their ears.
You will see lots of small cotton balls on the cabin floor when all passengers disembark. Our aircraft (the caravan) is pretty noisy so the locals normally put some cotton balls or tissues into their ears. The problem is they don't take those with them. So when they disembark, you see snow looking dirty cotton balls in the cabin or just outside of the plane.
12. The runway is yours when the tower is closed.
Some airports provide a service just for our company flights because we are the only one who flies. When the airport is “closed” after hours or simply when we are not there, the airport often changes its function to a soccer field or a running track for the locals.
This is why we normally overfly the field first to let people know that "we are here, so get off the runway". Often, there’s a siren that warns people if there’s inbound or outbound traffic. What a safety feature!
13. My friend is at home. Can you wait for him, captain?
Lots of flying that we operate is government subsided flights. Which means, we have to take the locals to go in and out of their villages if there are seats available. People are generally good to be at the airport on time because that’s what they waiting for the entire day. But some people get lazy and expect pilots to wait for them.
I had one ground crew ask me if we can wait for his friend. I said where is your friend? and he said his friend is at home. Just to give him a lesson to be at the airport on time next time, I said “close the door! Let's go”
14. Thank you. Would you like some Gold?
This happened to my boyfriend who also flies in Papua. He medevac-ed a little boy who got injured very badly for falling down from a tree. The next time when he flew to the village again, the little boy's father came to him and said “Thank you for saving my boy’s life. There’s some gold for you!” How nice is this! Papua has the largest gold mine and some locals find some in the river. It’s great to see some appreciation for what we are doing for them.
15. A Pig breastfeeding while on a flight
Like I mentioned before, a pig is like a baby to lots of Papuans. You can easily see that Papuan ladies breastfeed piglets. It's a part of their tradition. This can happen anywhere even in flight when the piglet gets hungry. Papuans still eat pigs when they are nice and fat. Very ironic!
Did I make you know more about aviation in Papua? or Did I scare you?
Thanks for reading all the 15 things! I will post some more if I can think of more things!
Happy landings!