MAF completes rural airstrips survey in Morobe

THE Papua New Guinea Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) completed a rural airstrip survey in the Finisterre Range in Morobe last week, an official says.
MAF flight operations manager Brad Venter, who has 10 years’ experience flying in the country, said they had been carrying out surveys in Morobe last week.
“We did three surveys a couple of days ago, we went to Bunguwat, Yawan and Tapmange in Morobe,” he said.
Venter said they surveyed Indagen, Isan and Satwag, and were heading to Saidor in Madang but called it off because of rain.
“We are trying to get enough airstrips open and surveyed in Morobe so that we might start clinic runs with the Etap Lutheran hospital to provide service to the people,” he said.
“They were very excited about us going back and asking us so many questions.
“That’s good. I think it’s really good for them to see us coming back again and that we haven’t forgotten about them.”
Venter said there were still much work to be done because MAF had not gone further down to Satwag and Huon Peninsula.
“So far, there are lots of surveys still to do further out,” he said.
According to MAF, the efforts of their survey teams all through the year had resulted in them completing surveys of 136 of the 216 airstrips.
The aviator said planning and executing surveys needed coordination between several agencies and they (MAF) had been affected by weather on several occasions.