The morning flights had gone well and I was tucking into my sandwich for lunch while the ground crew loaded up four 55-gallon fuel drums for the first of two afternoon flights to the mountain airstrip of Sinak in Indonesia’s Papua province.
We often flew these drums containing either diesel or petrol for vehicles, machinery or electric generators used at many of the villages we flew to. No one liked flying fuel drums as we didn’t really have enough straps to anchor them down properly, they always gave off fumes from whatever was in them and they had a habit of leaking.
Papua Barrel Run
The thought of what would happen if any spilt fuel ended up somewhere with an electrical spark was never far from my mind. To add to the anxiety, the noise of them expanding and contracting with altitude changes was like someone letting off a bomb behind you.
Still, it was part of the job and so, with the fuel drums loaded, I started up my Pilatus PC-6 Porter, registration PK-BVY, and departed Timika towards the Ilaga Pass. As it was now early afternoon, the clouds had built up enough to cover all the ridges on the southern part of the mountains and I would have to cross these to get into the mountains for the last part of the flight to Sinak.
The route from Timika would take me over a saddle in the ridges that pilots called the Ilaga Pass due to its proximity to Ilaga airfield in the bowl on one side of it. Ilaga was a very popular place for aircraft as it served a number of the surrounding villages and was one of the few airstrips with a sealed runway surface. I would be passing almost directly over it on my way to Sinak in the next valley, but first I would have to negotiate the clouds covering the Ilaga Pass.
The Right Way Through the Clouds
The safest way to do this was to follow our IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) GPS tracks, as these were tried and tested routes all pilots in Papua used to get to various locations throughout the mountains. Provided you followed the track at the minimum safe altitude, you wouldn’t crash into any of the terrain.
It’s the same way most commercial aircraft operate in bad weather in the Alps in Europe, and far safer than the old method of scud running. That’s where you fly below the cloud layers in a valley, trying to remain visual with the terrain and hoping the clouds don’t get any lower before the end of the valley, else you’d have to turn around.
I crossed the Ilaga Pass in the clouds at 13,500 feet and due to the altitude was breathing from the on-board oxygen system. PK-BVY had a different system than the other aircraft I was used to, but it seemed to be working fine and I hadn’t succumbed to hypoxia. This is a potentially lethal high-altitude condition caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain that ultimately causes you to pass out. Because it comes on slowly enough for you not to notice, I always used supplementary oxygen when flying above 12,000 feet.
I landed, parked up at the top on a makeshift apron and turned back to line up on the airstrip for the departure. Once the engine was shutdown the locals started removing the fuel drums. As the Porter’s side doors stood some 1.5 meters off the ground, an old truck tyre was used to cushion the falling 200-kilogram drum from bursting when it hit the ground. I tended to stand to the side ready to try and stop the drum bouncing backwards and hitting the aircraft.
Back to the Skies
Unlike the barefoot or flip-flop wearing locals, I wore a sturdy pair of boots to help with kicking the drums if required. This method was surprisingly effective and I only ever had one drum split on me in all my years out in Papua. With the drums unloaded I then loaded up some empty drums to take back to Timika for refilling. These were often even worse than the full ones as they tended to be full of fumes and not sealed well, so they leaked those fumes into the cabin.
The Porter had decent ventilation, but even with the vents fully open the fumes could get pretty bad. With four empty drums loaded up and strapped down, I departed Sinak and began climbing up out of the valley and into the clouds on my safe GPS track.
The empty drums popped and banged as their internal air pressure equalized to the decreasing air pressure during the climb. The fumes were no worse than any other time I’d flown drums, but I was starting to feel a little fatigued as I levelled off at 13,500 feet. I was getting over a slight cold and combined with fumes I figured it would be wise to cancel the last flight of the day when I got back to Timika.
As I got overhead Ilaga and was about to cross the Ilaga Pass, I started feeling pins and needles in my fingers. Immediately I thought this might be the onset of hypoxia, so I increased the oxygen flow rate to my face mask. This had no effect and the pins and needles persisted so I removed the mask and double-checked the whole system. I set the flow to maximum and could feel the oxygen being blown into the mask, so I knew it was working.
Disaster at the Pass
I was hand flying the Porter inside a cloud, knowing there was an awful lot of high terrain not far below me. At this point I was convinced the oxygen was somehow contaminated and poisoning me, which was why I was feeling these pins and needles. I’d heard rumors of the bottles being refilled with welding oxygen from car garages rather than the more expensive medical-grade oxygen from the hospitals. Just as I got to the Ilaga Pass, I was hit by a massive wave of nausea and everything started to spin around me.
I just had time to remove my face mask as I curled over the controls and vomited all over my lap and onto the floor of the aircraft. I tried to sit up again, but the nausea was overpowering and I vomited again. By now I wasn’t able to fly the aircraft and, being inside a cloud, had no visual references outside, so was relying on the aircraft’s instruments to tell me if I was flying level.
I found the only way I could control the waves of nausea was to rest my head on my right hand with my elbow resting on the tray just under the instrument panel next to the engine control levers. I was holding the control stick with my left hand to try and keep the aircraft level and on track but was losing strength with each wave of nausea and lacked the energy needed to push the rudder pedals to coordinate any turns.
Lost in the Clouds
Panicking now, I was still convinced I was being poisoned by the oxygen but perhaps also suffering some level of hypoxia due to the altitude. I needed to clear the Ilaga Pass and track south towards the flatter terrain so I could descend below 10,000 feet and not be dependent on the bottled oxygen. Trouble was, I was still inside the clouds and by tracking south I was now off my safe GPS track. I had no idea what the terrain was like below me but I knew from having flown this route visually many times that it did drop away quite quickly.
I decided to start a slow descent and to monitor the on-board terrain alerting system to keep me away from crashing into anything. This was at best a gamble. The terrain database in the Garmin G950 was out of date and even when in date it was not to be relied on due to inaccuracies. It displayed a moving map of your position and the surrounding terrain. If you got within 1,000 feet of where it thought there was terrain, it would highlight that area in yellow.
If you got within 100 feet it would go red. I decided to descend as far as the yellow on the screen and continue tracking south as I knew this would be the quickest way below 10,000 feet and for me to stop breathing the possibly contaminated oxygen. My heart was racing now and I was sweating so much my shirt was soaked. The nausea was subsiding as I descended but if I moved my head even a tiny amount it returned with a vengeance and I again vomited.
Visions and Dreams
Exhausted, I started wondering how much longer I could remain conscious. Every time I blinked, my eyes seemed to remain closed for longer and longer until one blink lasted more than a few seconds. When I opened my eyes I could see the aircraft banked over in a 30-degree turn. Instinctively, I jerked the control stick back to level the aircraft and another wave of nausea and vomiting hit. I had to remain conscious and not move my head out of my hand to stop the nausea.
By keeping my head still and just staring at the instruments I was able to continue flying. After what felt like hours, I got below 10,000 feet and was finally able to remove the oxygen mask. I started to hyperventilate with the excitement of being able to breathe normal air again and didn’t even notice I’d also come out of the clouds and was clear of the mountains. I then somehow managed to set course directly for Timika, which was now around 20 minutes away. I was becoming weaker and weaker, and my heart continued to race.
By now I was so weak I was unable to talk and radio calls were futile. Again the blinking was getting longer and longer to the point that I started slipping into dreams. The feeling to just let it all go and go to sleep was overwhelming. I had visions of the accident report and the investigators trying to work out how a perfectly competent pilot managed to crash his serviceable aircraft into flat jungle in visual conditions.
All Susi Air aircraft had GPS trackers installed, so at least they’d be able to find the wreckage fairly quickly. I was thinking about my parents, my brother, my friends and how they’d all be devastated with my death. I was only 34 but I was about to die in a plane crash. I genuinely don’t know how I didn’t pass out, but as I got closer to Timika the realization hit that I would have to try and land this airplane.
Finding the Runway
Still holding my head in my hand to stop the nausea, I knew that to land the plane I’d have to look up to ensure I got it on to the runway. I also knew this would bring on a wave of nausea and by now I was feeling so weak I wasn’t sure I could remain conscious to pull it off. I prepared for landing and pressed the GPS tracker’s “quick position” button that alerted the flight office in Jakarta that something was off.
I had no idea if I was cleared to land or if there were any other aircraft about to land or take-off. I was coming in regardless, but too weak to even speak and announce my intentions over the radio. I’m not even sure if I tuned the control tower frequency in correctly. I used the on-board avionics to position the aircraft as best I could in line with the runway. I slowed down and put the flaps out.
Thankfully, the Porter’s trim is electric so didn’t require any effort to adjust for the pitch change that the flaps brought in. I watched the altimeter and just as I thought I was close to the ground I looked up to try and attempt the landing. Amazingly, I was pretty central on the runway but landed hard. I summoned all the strength I could to keep the aircraft straight with the rudder pedals as it rolled down the runway. The taxi turn off the runway took everything I had to steer with my feet, but I wasn’t able to keep it straight and nearly went off the side. Once off the runway, I pulled the engine cut-off lever and collapsed on the seat next to me.
I came to moments later to the sound of lots of talking and hands positioning under me to lift me out of the cockpit. I was bundled into a car on the back seats and vomited again before blacking out. I went in and out of consciousness for the drive to the hospital and had no idea where I was or how long I’d been in the car. At the hospital, I was put on a stretcher and again tried to vomit but by now had nothing left inside me. I was wheeled into the building and into a room with curtains that were swiftly drawn.
How Did It Happen?
Whilst various lines and tubes were attached to me, I almost immediately started to feel the nausea subside. I wasn’t aware of anything being injected into me or any medicine administered, but as suddenly as it had come on it seemed to be receding. It was unreal, and none of the doctors could explain it. I was able to talk again and recounted the whole flight to Kersen, who was fielding phone calls from Susi HQ and all over Papua.
News spreads fast in Susi Air and my phone had numerous missed calls and messages from people asking how I was. The best diagnosis the doctors could come up with was I had had acute food poisoning. They asked what I’d had for lunch and I said a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, which I’d often had. Kersen called the maid who’d made the sandwich up and she mentioned that the jar of mayonnaise she’d used was now empty and so had probably been open for quite a while. Nothing quite like a large jar of mayonnaise in tropical heat for bacteria formation.
I’ll never know if that was the cause, but I guess my will to live was stronger than I thought. I’d certainly used up one of my nine lives, and it put me off mayonnaise forever. Everywhere I went, for the rest of my time at Susi Air, the resident maid already knew not to serve me mayonnaise without me having to say a thing.
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British-born Matt Dearden flew for Indonesia’s Susi Air for seven years, inspiring his 2024 book, Flying from Shangri-La, from which this article is excerpted. Follow him on Instagram.
