Weathered In

Renae posted what was happening on the home front while I was out dodging clouds with my chief pilot Craig.  So here is my side of the story.

Craig and I started out our day with the typical pre-flight checks of the Kodiak.  There was no real cloud build ups yet or any reports that the weather was going to "tank" a little later in the morning.  We took off and headed towards Malinau (our main "hub" in the jungle, it is about a 25 min flight in a Kodiak from Tarakan) with only one passenger.  Our schedule today was to land in Malinau and then take about 800 lbs of medical supplies to a village about an hour to the South West of Malinau called Long Nawang.

Medical supplies all loaded up behind me

By the time we landed in Long Nawang we had been avoiding rain showers and clouds for about a quarter of the trip.  We dropped off the cargo in the rain and picked up three more passengers that wanted to go to Mahak Baru, a town about 15 min flight away.  One of the passengers was really sick and needed to go to the hospital in Malinua.  He hadn't been eating for 4 days because he couldn't keep anything down.  He also had considerable abdominal pain so trying to get him to a place of treatment was foremost in our mind.  We took off in a light drizzle and had a little difficulty getting to Mahak Baru because of low clouds obscuring the mountains around it. Once we landed we dropped off some more cargo and were literally climbing into the aircraft when a wall of rain and clouds shut down the airstrip.  Talk about a bummer, if we had just 5 more minutes we could have gotten out of there.  But we sat there with our sick patient laying on the cabin floor for about 3 hours.

My perspective of the rain

Finally after waiting and checking weather with other stations in the area, we had enough cloud clearances to takeoff.  Except the weather was not improving anywhere else on our route.  Malinau was reporting low clouds and rain plus our other pilots in the area where having difficulty navigating the heavy rain showers and clouds.  Craig wisely took on as much fuel as we could so that our options for getting to another airfield if our planned airport was closed due to weather.

Rain has stopped but clouds have not lifted yet

Rain comes again and the mountains run and hide again

Taking on extra fuel

See the mountain in the background...you don't?!? Well trust me it is there and before we can leave we need to see it, cause "Cumulus Granite"  is not a name for a soft cloud

Our little airport Kiosk that we waited the rain out in, to be honest this is my favorite stop because the airport attendant always has food for us like, fried rice and tea.  So we were not suffering

We finally got off from Mahak Baru and poked our way through the clouds. 

Once we were past our initial storm cells that had made us wait, we started to run into other storms that were more wide spread, black and nasty looking.  They kept pushing us off course and further away from our planned destination of Malinau.  Craig made the decision to try and just get back to Tarakan because one weather was bad and two our fuel was not going to out last the weather.  So we diverted for home.

This is what greeted us as we tried to get home.  The clouds on the left side are the advancing thunderstorm that has already engulfed the South side of the Island.  Right now you are looking at the Northern shore of Tarakan.  Also the airport is located on the Southern side.  We tried to make it to the runway but the turbulence was starting to pick up and we decided again to divert to another airport about a 40 min flight to the south called Kalimarau.  It was a big disappointment to see our destination and not be able to land, but we are trained to make safe, conservative decisions when it comes to flying the airplane.  Even if it means flying in the opposite direction from home and spending a night away from a wife that is not feeling well already and needs a help with the kids.

Another look as we turned away from Tarakan and headed toward Kalimarau

We just landed in Kalimarau and our patient was not doing too well.  He had already spent 5 hours in the aircraft and was in need of an IV to help give him liquids.  We were able to get them to a clinic and they got him an IV that helped him tremendously.  Because the next day he looked better and could actually interact with us.

The Sunset from the storm that has plagued us all day

The line "help" that came to keep up company

So this is the next day.  The sky was blue, or mostly blue, and there was not a hint of storm in the air.  We were able to fly the patient to there intended destination of Malinau and then had another call to go do a flight for a family in Samarinda that had their grandmother die.  They wanted to transport her to Malinau to be buried there because that was where she grew up.  We both thought that it was a good idea, fly down there, return to Malinau and fly home.  Simple, right?  Well, life and weather are rarely simple. 

Clouds started to form on our 2 hour journey to Samarinda and after loading up the casket and the 5 family members that were to accompany their grandmother the weather just "tanked" with low rain clouds, gusty winds and a storm front behind it that looked even worse. 

This is what it looked like.  But that is not all.  As we took off trying to find a way through, over, under, around or anywhere, we just were looking at a 15,000 foot wall of dark angry looking water holding clouds after only 20 minuets of flying.  We had reluctantly turn around and head back to the airport before that closed too from the storm moving in behind us.  Think this trip was exciting enough?  To say the least Renae was not thrilled to hear that we would be spending another day away from each other.


So Craig and I loaded up in a taxi and headed to another hotel for another night away from family.  It wasn't all that bad though for the second night.  We were in a slightly bigger city so they had ACE Hardware.  Not the same "ACE" as in the States but one that kinda has everything including hardware but all the way up to rugs, tubs and light fixtures.  So I got to shop around for a few things to bring back home, all the hazardous stuff that you can't take in the airlines like aerosol cans, sharp objects and corrosive liquids... or at least if I needed them.

The next day was a flawless weather day with just some clouds to help shade us from the sun.  We made the flight to Malinau and then back home.  And so ends our adventure for this month.

A crowd came to meet us and the carry the casket away