A small, volunteer group of seaplane pilots, mechanics, and nurses are making a life-saving difference in one of the most impoverished places on the planet.
Life in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is short, brutal, and poor. It is one of the few places on the planet where polio and tuberculosis have made comebacks and cholera outbreaks still kill thousands. Malaria afflicts 164 of every 1,000 people. Average life expectancy is just 65.
Population has quintupled since 1960. Most of the nation’s 10.5 million residents scratch out a living via subsistence fishing and farming; 88 percent remain rural and they speak more than 840 languages. Crops grown on riverbanks flood out when the water levels rise. Average per capita income is just $2,500. The infant mortality rate in some regions is as high as 40 percent. Most children who do survive never make it past the fourth grade. Tribal warfare is a regular fact of life. So is crime.
According to the U.S. State Department’s Country Security Report, “PNG’s crime rate is among the highest in world” and the country ranks 136 out of 140 in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s livability index, a score indicating that “most aspects of living are severely restricted.” Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index scores the PNG government as “highly corrupt.” Increasingly, organized crime is using the country as a gateway to smuggle illegal drugs into Australia.
In both rural areas and cities, including Wewak, the capital of East Sepik province, gangs of drunk, marauding criminal youth are fueled by a homebrew of blueberry rum and Wanbel called “Kerosene.” Their favorite tactic is to egg the windshields of approaching cars. Drivers instinctively turn on the wipers, a move that exacerbates the problem and makes forward visibility nearly impossible. Another trick is to place live babies in car seats at the side of the road.
In either scenario, drivers inevitably stop and that’s when the criminals pounce, robbing, assaulting, carjacking, and kidnapping. The gangs often carry a variety of homemade weapons including a wire catapult called a “silencer” that fires a lethal barbed arrow that resembles a very large, straightened fishhook often over a foot long. Catapult injuries are overwhelming the emergency room at Wewak’s Boram Hospital.
Boram is where the 25,000 residents of Wewak go for advanced care. So do the 350,000 residents of East Sepik Province who live in 120 villages along a 700-mile stretch of the Sepik River. While the area is served by 40-odd clinics, they are little more than dispensaries for rudimentary antibiotics capable of handling only minor illnesses and injuries. Most don’t even have X-ray machines. Someone in need of more advanced care had to make the arduous, three-day river and land journey to Wewak. The mortality rate for those making the trip was not good. That was until Samaritan Aviation began operations in 2010.
Pilot and pastor
Samaritan was founded by Californian Mark Palm, the son of a minister and the grandson of a seaplane pilot. Palm is very much a product of both: A&P mechanic, pilot, pastor, and graduate of both Bible and aviation technology college programs. He remembers his first mission, at age 16, building houses in Mexico for people who were living in cardboard boxes. Three years later, in 1994, he arrived in PNG for the first time. Organizations such as Mission Aviation Fellowship had long-served villages there in the highlands with wheeled gear single-engine turboprops, conducting medevac missions and flying in food, medicine, and supplies. But for river basin dwellers, there was no such relief.
Palm immediately saw the need—and the opportunity. “We heard stories about people dying trying to get to hospitals—and there was water everywhere,” he said. From that experience, the idea of Samaritan Aviation was born. After years of research, preparation, and fundraising, Palm returned in 2010 with his wife and three children—along with a used, disassembled Cessna 206 on amphibious floats, stuffed into a 40-foot ocean container.
Since then, Palm personally has flown more than 1,500 medical missions. Over the years, Samaritan’s fleet has grown to four aircraft. A small staff of dedicated volunteers collectively have flown more than 2,800 accident and incident-free missions, delivered more than 230,000 pounds of medical and other critical supplies, and saved thousand of lives. Samaritan’s patient missions in 2022 consisted of 39 percent covering disease and illnesses, 33 percent for pregnancy complications, and 27 percent related to trauma, often tribal violence. Or they fall out of a coconut tree, get attacked by river crocodiles, or sustain poisonous snake bites. Samaritan sees it all. A patient once delivered twins—in flight.
And Samaritan does all this on a shoestring budget of $2.68 million annually with administrative costs under 5 percent and a mere 1.6 percent spent on fundraising. Most of its budget comes from individual and foundation donations. Another 30 percent is contributed by grants from the district, provincial, and national PNG government units, that see the value of Samaritan’s service and would like to see it expanded.
Samaritan pays its pilots exactly nothing. Pilots are expected to find their own sponsors. Even so, qualifying to fly for Samaritan is not easy. Flying skills are tested. Pilots undergo psychological evaluations. Spouses are interviewed. Then a “vision trip” to PNG is required. “It’s really a calling,” said Palm.
Flying the Sepik River is dangerous, even under the best of conditions. Samaritan flies only daylight hours, but it does other things to mitigate risks: good pilots flying well-equipped airplanes. Samaritan operates only used 206s—and it’s not just a matter of cost. “They’re lighter [than new production aircraft] and can carry more,” Palm explained, noting that useful load comes in at around 1,030 pounds.
The ‘new’ 206
Samaritan’s latest “new” 206 is a 1980 model. Samaritan customized it with new paint, amphibious floats, a Continental IO550F engine for more boost, an all-composite 86-inch seaplane propeller, specialized cargo floor, Robertson STOL (short takeoff and landing) kit and wing extensions, another mod that allows the rear cargo doors to open when the flaps are down, V2track dual-mode cellular/satellite GPS tracking, texting, and voice, and a suite of modern Garmin avionics and an autopilot. The flight is in constant communication with the Boram triage nurse, and V2 allows it to be tracked in real-time by Samaritan. All-up, Samaritan invests about $650,000 in each 206 that it buys.
Medical equipment aboard is basic but functional: a stretcher, attendant chair, medical oxygen tank, and a drug bag with various intravenous solutions and injectables. Aircraft crew includes the pilot and the flight nurse. Patients are usually required to bring along a caregiver as well, generally a relative. Sometimes, depending on weight, there is room for two caregivers. Longest flights are approximately 140 nm or about one hour and 20 minutes, Palm said. The average flight is 45 minutes.
The 206s’ average fuel burn is 14.7 gallons per hour. The 100LL fuel the 206s require is not readily available in PNG, so Samaritan has it shipped in, eighty 50-gallon drums at a time for prices that range between $10 and $12 per gallon. But even at that price, running the piston engine-powered 206s still makes more sense than converting to single-engine turboprops that burn more, but plentifully-available and cheaper jet-A fuel.
“Your up-front cost [per plane] would be at least three times as much and those planes burn 50 gallons per hour,” Palm noted. While turboprops could accommodate larger loads, he insists that “the 206 fits the job best for what we do and that’s why we are still bringing them over [to PNG].” But he does admit that finding affordable used ones in good condition is becoming more challenging, and a transition to turboprops may be inevitable. “I think we might be forced to do it at some point,” he said.
Samaritan’s mission does not end when the patient is delivered to the airport at Wewak. Samaritan has its own ground ambulance and staff there for the last part of the journey to the hospital. After hospital admission, Samaritan follows up, bringing the patient clothing, food, and other necessities.
“We’re small, it has taken a long time, but we’re getting some traction right now,” Palm said of Samaritan’s program. “It’s exciting, being able to expand our capacity and serve a need that’s always been there.”
“These people deserve a chance.”