Old Kapit Airport - A Reflection

The old Kapit Airport is now used as a jogging track, for young people to enjoy learning how to drive.

Photo by a fellow blogger (http://uzitter.blogspot.com/2010/08/joging-di-airport-lama-kapit.html    )

9M-MDL, De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter, C/N: 802

Malaysian Twin Otter , ready for departure to Kapit and Sibu , Sarawak , Aug 1988

Folder: Henk Geerlings's photo gallery > Civil

 I was teaching in Kanowit in 1975 and it was a grand conversation topic if some of the children were able to say a few words about people travelling by air from Kapit to Sibu and then to Kuching. Many of my students came from Kapit and above Kapit.

"Madam, only people like Datuk Tajang Laing can fly from Kapit!!" Many of them would think that flying was an impossible life experience, having been exposed only to long boats and Chinese motor launches.

But then again, so many lives were saved because there was the famous Flying Doctors' Service in Sarawak. In 1975, Tun Abdul Rahman Yaacob arrived by helicopter on the football field of SEDAYA, the school where I was teaching, to grace a function.

Today when I meet again many of my former students, flying has become a great possibility with Air Asia offering "Now Everyone can Fly" opportunities.

Why was it abandoned? One would never know the real reasons.