Mission Aviation Fellowship of Papua New Guinea (Mount Hagen) has ended DHC-6-200 operations following the retirement of P2-MFU (msn 182) on October 14, 2019, the carrier announced via its Facebook profile.
The 41-year-old turboprop was ferried from MAF's base at Mount Hagen in central Papua New Guinea via Horn Island to Mareeba in Australia on October 14 and has remained in maintenance at Mareeba since then. MAF said it will try to sell the aircraft.
Mission Aviation Fellowship operates a maintenance, repair, and overhaul base at Mareeba airport for its Asia Pacific units.
The carrier subsequently completed its fleet transition to Cessna (single turboprop) 208B Grand Caravans, taking delivery of the ninth such aircraft on October 17. Two Caravans are based out of Telefomin, while the remainder is based out of Mount Hagen. MAF operates charter flights on behalf of the local Catholic community, as well as humanitarian, medevac, and other non-scheduled flights to remote towns in central Papua New Guinea.