The Flying For Life Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Episode 8 - Brazilian floods – aviation & the environment

When floods hit Rio Grande do Sul and made 600,000 people homeless, pilot Jacob Anderson from MAF affiliate Asas de Socorro flew in to help. Jacob and Caroline Pomeroy from Climate Stewards discuss the causes of southern Brazil’s worst ever climate disaster and explore the relationship between aviation and the environment.

Episode 7 – Staying safe in PNG

Given PNG’s recent fuel crisis and escalating civil unrest, how do you stay safe in such a volatile country? Pilot Andrew Symmonds, who was caught up in the riots, and Andy Hedley-Smith - MAF International’s head of security and former close protection manager at the Metropolitan Police - share their top tips.

Episode 6 – What does it take to become a MAF pilot? 21-year-old James Gullett - MAF UK’s youngest pilot - has just graduated from MAF’s Future Pilot Programme – a new scheme, which supports upcoming British mission pilots with the cost of their training. James and Marco Koffeman - Director of the Mission Aviation Training Centre where James completed his training - share their highs and lows of learning to fly.

Episode 5 – Happy Birthday MAF Arnhem Land! For half a century, MAF’s been serving the Yolngu people who live in the vast, isolated wilderness of Australia’s Arnhem Land. We hear from MAF Arnhem Land’s country director Matt Henderson and MAF partner Natalie Morreau who manages Miyalk Domestic & Family Violence Shelter, which has been empowering women for decades.

Episode 4 – Navigating Haiti: With gang violence on the rise, we hear from MAF pilot Eric Fagerland who’s overseeing a skeleton crew in the capital Port-Au-Prince, and MAF frequent flyer Dr Janice Cotrone – founder and dean of the Wesleyan University’s Haiti School of Nursing who narrowly missed a bullet and survived armed robbery.

MAF Timor-Leste pilot Ping Domtta, Dr Zwijnenburg from PNG’s Kompiam District Hospital and Maud Kells OBE – former midwife / nurse, trainer, author and founder of Mulita Hospital / Mulita Primary School in the DRC, all share their experience of MAF’s lifesaving medevacs (medical evacuations).

John Feil - Operations Manager for MAF South Sudan, Peter Claver - Head of Programmes at health charity AMREF and the Rev Bernard Suwa of Grace Community Church in Juba, share how they’re tackling poverty in South Sudan – MAF’s oldest African programme.

Join Sally Lloyd - Director of Strickland Bosavi Foundation, Maika Yabua - a science teacher at Nomad Mougulu High School and Steven Biggs - MAF Liberia’s Deputy Chief Pilot as they discuss access to education in Papua New Guinea and Liberia.

Episode 9 – 40th anniversary of the Ethiopian famine

In 1984, Sir Bob Geldof saw the BBC’s ‘Biblical famine’ report from Ethiopia, which sparked ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’ and ‘Live Aid’. MAF’s Keith Ketchum recalls how he flew in hundreds of tons of food and enabled the BBC to capture that devastating footage. Sam Baguma from MAF’s disaster response team compares how MAF tackles disasters today.

Episode 10 – Free at last: Mozambican authorities drop terrorism case

On 2 November 2022, MAF pilot Ryan Koher was supposed to fly supplies to an orphanage in Cabo Delgado, when he was stopped by security just for carrying vitamins. Little did Ryan know that he would end up in prison for 4.5 months for a crime he didn’t commit. What started as a misunderstanding soon escalated to suspected terrorism. Ryan and his wife Annabel share their ordeal.