We did our best to rescue Tong, says NCA

By JUNIOR UKAHA
THE late David Tong’s employer North Coast Aviation (NCA) says it had done its best to rescue the pilot following his plane crash but unfortunately could not.
NCA’s flight operations manager Geoff Thiele told The National yesterday that as soon as he realised that Tong’s tracker on the plane stopped he knew that the pilot was in trouble.
Tong left Derim in Kabwum at 9.57am on Saturday, Dec 23, and was supposed to arrive at Nadzab by 10.30am but did not.
“He stopped (crashed) 6.1 nautical miles east of Dinangat,” Thiele said.
“I was really worried when the tracker stopped.
“I knew something was not right.
“I called Jurgen Ruh of Manolos Aviation and asked for one of his helicopters to assist us search for him.
“We took off in another plane and searched for him.”
Thiele said they could not locate Tong on Dec 23 because of vast cloud cover resulting in poor visibility.
He said that at about 3.30pm, about five hours after the crash, the pilot made the first phone call to an NCA pilot explaining what had happened to him and that he needed help.
This was followed by several more phone calls and text messages requesting help.
“Me and another pilot later went to the crash site on a chopper in the afternoon and briefly located something from the site,” Thiele said.
“The weather wasn’t getting any better so we came back to Nadzab.”
He said they had then requested a rescue team from the Pogera mine which arrived on Christmas Eve and assisted in the search.
Thiele said the rescue team could not reach the wreckage site because of huge cloud cover.
They located the plane on Christmas Day and eventually retrieved Tong’s body on Tuesday morning, three days later, between 8 and 9am.
“In retrospect, I couldn’t think of anything better,” Thiele said.
“We have done our best to save his life.”
“It was just unfortunate.”
Thiele said there was no rescue helicopter nearby which the company could call for help.
It had to request an aircraft all the way from Pogera in Enga to assist in the rescue efforts.
Thiele as far as he knew, both pilot and the plane were in good order when they left Nadzab for Kabwum that day.