Aircraft Accident In Papua New Guinea

12 August 2009

Following a request from the Government of Papua New Guinea, Australia has begun deploying ADF assets to assist Papua New Guinean authorities in the search for the Airlines PNG aircraft that went missing enroute to Kokoda yesterday.

The Royal Australian Navy's HMAS Success, with an embarked Sea King Helicopter has been diverted from its current location near the Torres Strait. The Sea King helicopter is due to arrive at Port Moresby this morning while HMAS Success will arrive later this afternoon.

A Caribou aircraft is currently in Port Moresby for a separate activity and has been made available for tasking this morning.

A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) C-130 Hercules departed RAAF Base Richmond early this morning with the following capabilities:

• An aeromedical evacuation (AME) team capable of handling one high dependency patient and a number of other lower dependency patients.

• A six person Mobile Air Load Team, who will be utilised as an incident-site support party to assist with search and recovery efforts if required.

• Three members of an Australian Federal Police (AFP) Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team.

On arrival in Port Moresby, the C-130 will be available for aeromedical evacuation.

Two Army Black Hawk helicopters from the Sydney area are being prepared for movement by a RAAF C-17 Globemaster. They are expected to depart Richmond later this afternoon.

Also on this flight will be the remaining ten members of the AFP DVI team and four members of the Australian Transport Safety Board.

The ADF is committed to providing support to this mission for as long as required and additional ADF manpower will be made available if required.