Time Before

A random Bazflyer moment spawned this blog. Driving along the road mid week, audio volume turned up, a favourite song pulsing the air. And then it happened, the moment that is, or perhaps in the context of this blog it could appropriately be termed “think think time before”, a lovely Melanesian Pigin phrase for memory. 

When first released the song cascading out of the car’s audio speakers was a memorable track on a desirable album of that time. The flash back moment was recalling the art-full activity of wrapping a cassette version of the album as a present to be opened on Christmas morning. The memory of that moment is so clear as are the descending words that adorned the cassette graphic; “Pink Floyd The Wall”. The album was released forty years ago in time for Christmas 1979. 

However, there is more than the great Pink Floyd rock band to anchor 1979 in the Bazflyer’s memory archive. At the time they lived in Goroka, a small town in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Bazflyer1 was Chief Pilot for a fast growing helicopter company. Bazflyer2 taught at the local International School. The world was aviation centric and life was good. 

Unfortunately forty years ago is also tagged for tragic reasons, especially for aviators of the time. It will be forever associated with two of the worst aircraft accidents of all time.

One of the accidents occurred on May 25, 1979, when a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operated by American Airlines as Flight 191 from O’Hare, Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California, crashed into the ground as it was taking off from runway 32R. All 258 passengers and 13 crew on board were killed, along with two people on the ground. With 273 fatalities, it is the deadliest aviation accident to have occurred in the United States. The uncontrollable crash resulted when the left hand engine separated from the aircraft.

The second of these accidents tragically occurred on November 28, 1979. All 257 occupants on an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight TE901 were killed when the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft flew into Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica. This accident since referred to as the Erebus Disaster, is New Zealand's deadliest peacetime disaster, as well as the deadliest accident in the history of Air New Zealand.

Bazflyers succinctly remember the Erebus Disaster. They flew the morning after on a scheduled Air New Zealand flight in a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 with their two children travelling from Brisbane, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand. The totality of the tragedy was yet to become fully apparent, nevertheless, the mood on the flight that morning was eerily sombre in a most unforgettable manner.   

Forever a maligned airplane the final passenger flight with a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 occurred just two years ago. The honour went to Bangladesh Biman Airlines, operator of the world's last passenger DC-10 that made its final scheduled flight on December 7, 2017. But while the iconic, wide-body, three-engine workhorse of late-20th-century air travel is no longer hauling passengers it hasn’t yet completely disappeared from the skies...it is still in use by cargo carriers.

Oh...you wish to know what the track from that album was..? It was “Mother”. Turn up the audio volume, stand back, enjoy a great song from one of the best rock bands ever! Then ‘think think time before’....what were you were doing forty years ago?

The album cover design was renowned for its simplicity.

Papua New Guinea is an independent nation located to the north of Australia previously featured in the blog.

One of the Hughes 500D helicopters flown by Bazflyer1 in Papua New Guinea. Pictured in 1979 at Goraka (AYGA) airport in the Eastern Highlands Province.

McDonnell Douglas DC-10 depicted in Continental Airlines livery as operated on the airline’s Trans-Pacific services and used on several occasions by Bazflyers.