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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N652, August 22, 2021
Easter Island: The Almost Lost Air Flight
Back last month, we presented here in Wavescan an opening story regarding the radio scene on the well known though very isolated island in the South Pacific that is identified in English as Easter Island. It was in July last year (2020), that a very interesting event took place in association with Easter Island, an event that occurred just one year ago. This is the story.
The Mataveri Airport on Easter Island is more than two thousand miles from mainland South America, and it is listed as the world's most remote airport. There is just one runway at the Mataveri Airport, and it runs right across the island, from the southeast coast to the west coast. In this way, the island is divided into two sections, with the dormant volcano, Mt. Rano Kau, to the south, and the rest of the island to the north.
While aircraft are flying over the vast Pacific Ocean in the 2,500 mile journey from South America to Easter Island, they maintain radio contact with Santiago in Chile, with the usage of shortwave radio and satellite communication equipment. When the aircraft reaches the midpoint over the ocean between Chile and Easter Island, no other plane is permitted to fly towards Easter Island beyond that mid-point until the first plane has landed safely on the island. If the first plane were to crash land for example, there would be no place for a second plane to land; not on the island, nor at any other safe place as a diversion.
On Thursday, July 9, just last year (2020), a jet passenger plane acting as an air ambulance departed the airport in Santiago, Chile, bound for Easter Island 2,500 miles distant, to pick up a patient for the return trip to Santiago. Soon after the plane crossed over the mid-point between South America and Easter Island, they lost radio communication.
The satellite communication equipment on the plane failed; they were unable to make communication by shortwave with the control tower at Santiago airport; and it was too early for the shortwave operators to be on duty at the airport on Easter Island. They were not lost, not yet anyway, but they needed radio communication.
In an endeavor to open radio communication with mainland South America, they chose the 40 metre amateur band channel 7100 kHz, and they contacted two amateur radio operators in neighboring Peru, OA4DTU and OA4DSN. In their opening QSO, the aircraft crew explained their predicament to the two amateur radio operators in Peru.
Their aircraft was en route from South America to Easter Island, they had crossed over the mid-point between South America and Easter Island, they had lost all normal aviation communication with Santiago, Chile, and they needed to reopen some satisfactory radio communication with their home base. The flight crew on the lonely airplane asked the two amateur radio operators in neighboring Peru: Please make contact by telephone with the main airport in neighboring Santiago, Chile and explain to them our predicament.
The two amateur radio operators in Peru were able to open contact by telephone with the main airport control tower in Santiago, Chile, and they maintained this unusual though necessary communication between the aircraft and its home base until the plane landed safely at the Mataveri Airport on Easter Island.
With the relay of information back and forth between the two amateur stations and the control tower, and between the two amateur stations and the airplane, continuous flight information was provided to ensure a safe arrival for the plane at Easter Island. These QSO exchanges were maintained over a period of three hours, until the plane made a safe and routine landing at 11:30 pm, during a rainstorm.
The stricken patient was loaded onto the plane, the plane turned around, and it made a routine and this time uneventful return flight back to Santiago, Chile. That all happened, just one year ago.