Pilots rescue injured boy from remote village

By JOSHUA MANI
THE decision by two Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) pilots to carry extra fuel enabled them to rescue an injured 10-year-old boy from remote Wawoi Falls in Western.
The boy, only known to the pilots as Mark, had fallen off a tree last month fracturing his right leg.
He had been in a lot of pain since.
Captain Philipp Sutter and Joseph Tua were in the air on Dec 31 and were taking off from Mogulu in North Fly when they got the call to take Mark to Kiunga.
“The distance from Mougulu to Wawoi Falls is about 40 nautical miles, but the flight path was in the opposite direction,” Sutter said.
“We decided that we could do it since we had taken an extra 60min of fuel out of Mt Hagen due to the rainy weather.
“For this diversion, we would use 20min worth of fuel each way, leaving us with 20min over minimum fuel at our destination in Kiunga.
“We decided to do the extra leg, which turned out to be very helpful for Mark.”
The medevac kit they had include an inflatable mattress which the boy lay on and the harness system which secured him during the flight.
Mark’s father was also on the flight and held his leg up.
“We flew straight to Kiunga. Via high frequency radio, we advised our base manager in Kiunga to call the ambulance.
“We lifted Mark off the airplane and straight into the ambulance.”