Search for chopper enters sixth day

By CLEMENT KAUPA
DESPITE renewed efforts and the use of sophisticated tracking and surveillance devices, the Hevilift Bell 206 chopper and its three-man crew remain missing.Late yesterday afternoon, Hevilift’s deputy managing director Colin Seymour said in an email: “We still have hopefully over an hour worth of flying left today but no developments so far.”At 7.36pm, a media update confirmed that there was still no sighting of the aircraft. It stated: “Regrettably there was no sighting of the Hevilift helicopter or of the three missing crew members during today’s search. The search will recommence at first light tomorrow morning, Thursday.”
This is the sixth day since the aircraft and the crew went missing five minutes after taking off from Triceratops-2, one of two gas fields in the Gulf of Papua at 3.25pm last Friday.From a map supplied by Seymour, it now appears that the chopper could have gone down close to a locality known as Wabo, rather than close to Wabag town as was wrongly reported earlier by the company and published in this newspaper yesterday.  Wabo is situated on the Gulf side of the border separating Eastern Highlands and Chimbu, a zone that is ruggedly mountainous and shrouded in thick jungles.This seems to have been confirmed by Seymour that the area around Triceratops-2 is not densely populated as opposed to areas around Wabag in the Enga province.“The missing aircraft departed from the InterOil Triceratops-2 facility (Gulf province) and declared a Mayday five minutes later. “I have attached a basic map showing the location of Triceratops-2. This is not a densely inhabited area.” On board the helicopter were Australians Russel Aitken, 42, and Emmett Fynn, 36, with New Zealander Antony Annan, 53.The search and rescue party headed by Hevilift is operating from Mt Hagen, with the assistance of members of the Australian Defence Force and other authorities.