For the first time in 39 years a plane has landed in Atãuro, paving the way for potentially life saving trips to Dili.
The Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF)who provide emergency evacuation services (medivac)and aircraft,contacted local business owner Barry Hinton to check how the airstrip was coming along.
“I said it’s done I’ve just been down there and he said they’re going to send out a pilot to have a look at it and if he gives it the okay they’ll fly over and give it a test,” Hinton said.
Pilot and program manager of MAF in Timor-Leste, Jonathan Lowe, said all they need now is approval from the civil aviation authority.
“We’re taking them across with the Ministry of Health and Department of Civic Works so they can do their own inspection, and after that it should be open to us going in and out regularly,” he said.
Director General of the Ministry of Health, Dr Jose Magno, said if the civil aviation authority makes a recommendation to the government then they would launch the airport this week.
“Our team will be making inspections and verifications with the authority, and then we will make recommendations to the ministers to launch on Wednesday afternoon,” he said.
“We’ll be inviting the ministers of health, transport and communications and public work to come to Atãuro,” he said.
The airstrip, located between the villages of Beloi and Villa, will cut travel time in half with an estimated travel time of 13 minutes between Atãuro and Dili.
Helicopters used to use the old runway but took almost two hours to get patients to Dili, and the brand new medivac boat provided to Atãuro has been broken for two years.
Hinton said the importance ofmedivacs shouldn’t be underestimated.
“There was a woman in labour with preeclampsia and she died. There were no medivac capabilities at the time, she needed a caesarean and you can’t do that here.”
In October 2013, Hinton and others from the community started lobbying any government minister who came through Atãuro that rebuilding the airstrip was necessary and possible.
“It was just timing, life is timing and it was all good timing. It happened very quickly and whoever made those decisions, thank you very much,” Hinton said.
For medivac flights, the Ministry of Health cover two-thirds of the cost, while MAF subsidise the rest.
