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UK Explorer Benedict Allen Missing in Papua New Guinea

lordmongrove

Justified & Ancient
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May 30, 2009
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41994592

A search has been mounted for British explorer Benedict Allen, whose family say has gone missing during an expedition to Papua New Guinea.

The 57-year-old was travelling on his own to try to find the reclusive Yaifo tribe, whom he first met 30 years ago.

His sister says she was expecting to hear from him by Monday - and he hasn't taken planned flights home.

A helicopter pilot, who dropped Mr Allen off several weeks ago, is trying to find him, the BBC has learned.

Our security correspondent Frank Gardner, who recently travelled through Papua New Guinea with Mr Allen for a BBC documentary, said he understood the pilot was tracking Benedict's route from his starting point in a remote place called Bisoria.

They have spoken to local police chiefs, and were looking to locate him by helicopter and get him out, our correspondent said.

He added that the former UK high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, David Gordon-Macleod, said "huge areas of the country have no mobile coverage", meaning that even if Mr Allen had reached a village, he is likely to still be out of contact with the outside world.

Mr Allen's older sister, Katie Pestille, said it was "out of character" for him to miss his scheduled flight out of Papua New Guinea to Hong Kong.

"It's ghastly," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"For everybody else, it's very exciting - all the expeditions and all the things he does, but for his sister and his wife, it's more of a worry," she explained.
 
I've read a few accounts of this today and I get the feeling that you're supposed to think he's been, y'know, eaten.
 
Didn't he say if I disappear don't look for me? Suggesting he may well be gone for a lot longer than he expected. He's earned his stripes in that neck of the woods so I wouldn't right him off just yet.
 
I can understand the family starting to get concerned, but IMHO a 'surfacing' delay of only 2 - 3 days doesn't seem unusual given the objective, the terrain, and his own cautionary comments prior to departure.
 
It's almost as if he not only thought he might not come back, he *expected* or even WANTED not to.
 
He's alive, well and requesting evac...

'Waiting for a rescue party to be sent to pick him up.'

Hmmm. As a teenager my great grandfather was shipwrecked in the South China Seas - I'm not exactly sure where he made landfall, but he then had to make his own way back to Blighty (as everyone under such circumstances had to in those days) by a circuitous route which included signing up on ships in Hong Kong and Australia and a several week stay in Japan - when it was still not at all keen on Westerners. He presented himself at his company's offices on The Strand well over a year later with a modest bill for expenses incurred in reporting for duty.

But he wasn't an explorer - just a working class boy from Chatham.

Waiting for a rescue party...pah!
 
Maybe this Times cartoon fits here...

fHxOIZd7s9vOx4w7mMy5obosroYXFClLWz_pVD6NlJ3PrmLSN5c_O8OMV6DziaPoiASMpB1ECH3kEMkNLvW78922ma3Ct5S2hNELHY91WHla-LyTqusiNXU4HYVM2LejD-WTUsB98wfu0Xmcg9x2M5_hooMMEljilUdKO1Nk=s0-d-e1-ft
 
Tsk! Political comment!
[waggles finger]
 
Tsk! Political comment!
[waggles finger]

Ah but its a cartoon and its from The Times, a Tory supporting paper!

I daren't post it anywhere else because I'll be told it's racist or at the very least an example of cultural appropriation.
 
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