that Deborah has found her true calling. “When I saw the medevacs I thought, ‘Wow, if I fly for an airline I’m just flying passengers from point A to point B, and here I will be helping all these people’. And I just want to be part of this amazing team.” The scholarship will pay for Deborah to gain her helicopter flying wings at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Helicopter Flight School over three to six months, after which she will be able to realise her dream of flying medical rescue missions for Manolos. “I don’t think there are many black women in general in the world in the aviation industry, and then even less are flying helicopters,” Deborah says when asked about the rarity of her chosen occupation. Then I ask her if she ever considers the dangers and she laughs. “It’s too late for that now!”
The official party at the groundbreaking ceremony at UniTech in Lae to launch the Amelia Earhart Memorial and Trust scholarship on the famous aviator’s birthday of July 24
assistant Deborah has since moved up to grounds crew supervisor and has also been able to complete the training
and obtain her plane licence with the financial support of Manolos’ chief executive offcer Jurgen Ruh. It is at Manolos
Deborah is both humbled and honoured to receive a
ABOUT MANOLOS AVIATION: Manolos has eight helicopters in its fleet and answers emergency calls from as far as Madang, Eastern Highlands, New Ireland, East New Britain, Bougainville, Milne Bay, Western, Gulf and Central provinces. Medevacs range from pregnant mothers with birth complications to snakebites, broken bones, delivery of health supplies, remote health worker patrols and visits, and transfer of the wounded and sick, which includes some with COVID-19. Some of its rescues have been particularly memorable, including the mid-air births of two “sky babies”. The first in September 2021 was a Goilala baby boy who came to be named Jurgen after Manolos’ ceo Jurgen Ruh, who was the chopper pilot that day. An article about the birth by Loop PNG can be seen on the Manolos Aviation website, and tells of nurse Naomi Pamaraka’s
surprise in delivering the baby among the clouds enroute to POM. She had been keeping tabs on expectant mother Angela Daniel’s contractions 20 minutes after lifting off from a hill at Tanipai in the Goilala District of Central Province, an area that has no health facilities, when little Jurgen made his appearance. In March 2023 it was nurse Naomi again in the same pink Bell 222 helicopter who was called on to deliver the second sky baby, this time a girl, after her mother Belinda was picked up from the remote Catholic-run Kanabea Health Centre in Gulf Province for urgent transfer to Lae. Again, 20 minutes into the flight, the baby started to arrive and was safely delivered by Naomi.
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