And Today In Disturbing Safety News:
I've only flown into the Malang airport one time, and I have to say that I was not impressed. It's a military airport that only recently started taking a few daily flight from Sriwijaya Air and Merpati (whose unofficial slogan is, "It's Merparti and I'll Die if I Want To). When we arrived Layne and I noticed a handwritten poster that showed the pilot what runway we were supposed to land on. We didn't really think about it too much since it was our first time in Malang and we were promptly rushed off to our new schools and houses (or in my case, rushed off to a local mosque so the four men who picked me up could pray).
Johanna, who uses the Malang airport quite a bit, has been covertly gathering information about its operating standards. First she found out that the airport closes each day at 5, so when airport officials tell you a Malang flight is delayed and its already three pm, you're out of luck for the day.
More recently, she uncovered the reason for the early closing hours. It turns out that the Malang airport has no communication system or navigation equipment, so all flights, including 200 passenger commercial flights, are landing based purely on the pilot's visuals. In fact, Layne's neighbor's flight was rerouted to Surabaya one day when it was foggy--we assumed it was because the runways were wet. Actually, the pilot couldn't see the ground and would have been, absolutely literally, flying blind.
So that must be the reason for the poster. The pilot starts descending, and then checks out the poster of the day to see what runway is clear for him to land on.
I don't even have a little snarky wrap-up comment for this. I'm just going to teach you an Indonesian word I use quite a bit, usually in a questioning tone while pointing at a plane, bus, or other mode of transport.
berbahaya: dangerous
Labels: navaigation systems are for wimps
posted by Caitlin @ 3:25 PM
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