Last Thursday a MAF pilot with his plane in Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) went missing in the afternoon. The pilot who went missing was 23 year old Hadleigh Smith from Kirrawee in Sydney. He was flying cargo from Elcho Island to some Aboriginal communities, when he failed to return or be heard from. A full scale search was put in to place involving many aircraft and resources involving MAF, military and the Australian Search and Rescue. Last Friday some small parts of the plane were found washed ashore with some cargo. Indicating a crash over water, the search was scaled down and handed over to the NT police on the weekend. Since then Hadleigh or the aircraft is yet to be spotted.
MAF has been operating in Arnhem Land since 1970, this is the first fatal accident since starting operations there. It is a shock too because it is one of the less hazardous places MAF serves, in that it is quite flat.
The past week has been quite hard for some of us, especially those in the Arnhem Land team and Hadleigh’s family. Here in PNG it brings back a lot of memories for staff of a fatal crash two and a half years ago. For me it has been a big shock and at times shattering and affected me in different ways, as I did my MAF training with Hadleigh. We spent five weeks together doing transition training and MAF orientation in Melbourne. During that time we spent a lot of time together and became good friends, he was my closet friend during that time. He and the event has been on my mind a lot and has been hard because no more news has come forward and as time goes on he is presumed dead.
Hadleigh was from Kirrawee in Sydney and only 23 years old, soon to be 24. He was a young Godly man, with a passion for aviation and using that for God’s kingdom. Despite his age, he was an experienced pilot. He had talked about his desire to come to PNG and fly up here hopefully sometime in the near future. Something that I was looking forward to. Only to find out after the accident that there had been talks taking place about the possibility of him coming up in the future.
I have been thinking of so many things and reminded of many things during this time. Hope, sacrifice, how precious and short life is, God’s sovereignty. I have been reflecting on a lot of memories of Hadleigh too. It is a tradegic event, really sad and hard to believe he is gone. But God is in control, He knows the big picture and has His purpose for His children. I will miss Hadleigh, especially when the cricket starts up in Australia. But I look forward to seeing him again one day. i ask if you pray, to pray for Hadleigh’s family, girlfriend, the MAF team in this difficult time, thankyou.
For a newspaper report with parts of an interview with Hadleigh’s father, click here
October 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
wow, that is relly young. I will remember to keep his family and MAF in my prayars
October 28th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
wow…prayers with both you guys at MAF and his family.