Flights Resume

Western Highland Election Operation Commander, Superintendent John Sagom confirmed that all flights in and out of Kagamuga airport have resumed and back to normal, while security forces continue to maintain presence around the airport and Mt Hagen town areas.

He said, “Investigation into the oil spill incident commenced yesterday morning. We have identified some persons of interest on our radar and our investigators are monitoring them closely.”

The stranded passengers included journalists and guest who had attended the opening of the Hela Opene Polytech Institute in Enga Province on Wednesday. They could not get to the airport to return home, due to the civil unrest in Mt Hagen. 

The provincial rugby league team, the Enga Mioks, were also affected. The Mioks have a Round 4 game this weekend in Port Moresby.

Chairman Philip Kepson said the team was looking at other options, including getting out through Wapenamanda, but the airport can only cater for a small aircraft.

The resumption of Fokker flights follows the completion of runway maintenance works by the National Airports Corporation (NAC).

Since the works on the airport runway commenced early this year, Link PNG has been operating to Madang airport using smaller Dash-8 aircraft, but with passenger numbers restricted to as few as 20 at times because of the shortened runway.

For a period of time in July/August, the runway was closed to even Dash-8 size aircraft.