A battle against the altitude
and the elements

Corporal Simone Liebelt talks to the recovery team members about the mission.

Visibility is cut down to a few metres as cloud closes in on the camp site.

DIGGING for artefacts up to your armpits in freezing mud would be difficult enough, let alone doing it 14,000 feet (4270m) up a mountain.

But that’s exactly what a techo, a photographer and a medic did while on Exercise Dakota Recovery in Indonesian Papua recently.

They were part of a 10-man recovery team, which also included Wing Commander Rowley Tompsett and Flight Lieutenant Greg Williams from Air Force Headquarters, and five Indonesian Air Force members.

Their mission was to recover the final remains of crew and passengers from Dakota A65-61 from the side of the Carstensz Range.

Although getting to the isolated and inhospitable crash site was a challenge in itself, staying there was an even greater one, according to all three men.

“My first step off the helicopter resulted in an immediate nauseous feeling,” said Sergeant Gary Smith, an aircraft technician with No. 38 Squadron. It was his role to provide an historical link between the Dakota and his squadron, to which the crew once belonged.

“For the next few days, the constant headaches, cold, wind and rain took their toll on everyone; not to mention the ever present battle with the language barrier.”

Photographer Corporal Craig Eager said he couldn’t believe the effect it had on him.

“The first afternoon was when it hit me,” he said. “I became lethargic, my speech slowed and on a couple of occasions I couldn’t really determine if I was sitting or standing.

“It seemed as if something was sapping your energy; you would feel the need to stop and rest after walking about 50m and even after some steady digging, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.”

He said even the easy task of capturing photos and video was a challenge in that environment.

“I’d stop and try and get some imagery but I sometimes had trouble remembering if I’d taken photos or taken video.

The limestone rocks [I had to climb on to get the imagery] posed problems as well – the rocks had extremely sharp, serrated knife edges and there were lots of natural sink holes where you couldn’t see the bottom.”

One of the most important men on the trip was Medical Assistant Leading Aircraftman Daniel Pendergast – nicknamed “Dan the medicine man” – whose job it was to try and help everyone deal with the altitude sickness.

“To ward off the effects of altitude, I gave everyone some medication, which had the side effect of increasing the amount of times they needed to urinate,” he said.

“Combine the cold, and getting up three or four times a night, and I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t have any takers for the following night.

“We couldn’t go down a thousand or so feet to adjust to the altitude, it was either 7000ft or 14,000ft. So as the medic, it was a bit frustrating for me to not be able to do a lot about the headaches everyone was experiencing.”
Despite the obvious challenges, they all agreed it was a rewarding and memorable adventure.

“The whole notion of searching for human remains was a removed experience,” Sergeant Smith said. “The team worked very hard and very well to maintain a degree of sensibility as well as humour, and all in all, it was very humbling.”

Leading Aircraftman Pendergast said, “being tired, cold and miserable was turned around by having a laugh and trying to learn Indonesian”.

“The countryside was magic and the people we met throughout the mission made it enjoyable. Despite the nature of it, I left with really good memories.”

“The most bizarre thing about the place for me was the silence and the weather,” said Corporal Eager. “I would often stop and think about the poor people on the flight – you would not have wanted to survive the crash in those conditions.

“I just felt proud that we finally cleared the area of their remains for the families.”

 

Back

 

 

 

 

.