The good side of this venture was some anchorage aerial reccies…
But the bad side is ONLY takes a four day trip to get back from Hobart to the Solomons… but owing to domestic flights, I never made it to my intended destination!!!!
If someone intends to travel to destinations other than Munda and Gizo with Solomon Airlines, please read on.
I caught the 9:55 plane going to Ngatokae (Western Province) on Friday Aug 21st. I was told the day before to be at the check in at 0800 am (which I found a curiously early for domestic!) so I came at 0900 am. The plane indeed left 15 minutes early, although passengers were not informed in advance.
After the plane landed in Munda, the pilot instructed me to get off the plane, because it was not doing the Ramata-Batuna-Ngatokae run as planned and had to go directly to Honiara to return 4 international passengers so they did not miss their international connection. So here I am, kicked off the plane, wondering why these passengers did not plan their connections better or why SolAir did not advise them on problems with tight connections time. I always allow at least one day I nmy travels for connection aleas… Why didn’t SolAir bring the entire 955 flight one hour earlier so it could make all the landings ???
I was told in Munda that a (funeral) charter plane in the afternoon would pick me up (and another passenger ex Munda) and drop us off at Ngatokae. The plane was planned to arrive at 3pm, depart Munda at 3:15pm…
The plane was late and departed at about 4:15 (or a bit later), lots of funeral discussion and communal crying was happening in the crowded tiny airport terminal. Off theplane went, but in the wrong direction!! Of course, need to go back to to Gizo to refuel. It’s my second visit to Gizo for the day… By the time refuelling was completed, the pilot informed us that it was too late to land in Ngatokae and she was going to try to make the runaway of Seghe, 100 km away form Ngatokae. We asked to be put up in Gizo for the night, to help our chances of getting to GTA from Gizo but this option was refused to us. The pilot instructed us that she was going to try land in Seghe. If not possible we would return to Honiara, which was a better option for us than Seghe.
The reason why we got landed in Seghe, is because the Ngatokae agent got confused and suggested the possibility of a canoe to come and pick us up from Seghe. With the high winds encountered that day, I knew that this was totally improbable that a canoe could come and certainly no such thing had been suggested or planned by our colleagues at Nagtokae and I mentioned I would prefer to return to Honiara then.
We were landed in Seghe and accomodated in the local lodge at our own cost. No food was to be found late on Friday night, only warm solbrew… But Peter the lodge owner was quite a friendly informed chap.
I tried to organize space on the Saturday morning plane which landed in Seghe, but it was full. Could have kicked a few passengers myself to make some space!!!!
To get a plane diverted, it generally takes 2-3 hours for the local agent to get in touch with the Air Operations, shouting on the HF radio, their only means of communication, even in areas with mobile coverage!!!!
I then tried to organize the Saturday afternoon Honiara-Munda plane to land in Seghe, pick us up and drop us off at Ngatokae. Radio communications were poor so I rang Operations directly with the local policeman’s mobile phone. It ran out of credit before confirming Seghe landing and Operations never rang the number I had given back to finish conversation. I could not find anymore phone credit and the plane did not land despite the local agent’s efforts. I had contacted both Gizo and Honiara offices to inform them of the situation but no one did much…
Eventually I could be picked up by yacht from Seghe, however, the other passenger was left stranded. Due to winds, it has not been possible to return to Ngatokae by boat.
