A 40-year-old missionary from Maryland who was flying a plane carrying coronavirus test kits to a rural Indonesian village was killed when it crashed shortly after takeoff, officials said.
Joyce Lin, who served as a Kodiak pilot and IT specialist for the Idaho-based Mission Aviation Fellowship, took off from Sentani Airport in Papua province early Tuesday on a one-hour flight to Mamit, the organization said.
“Within minutes of takeoff, she reported an emergency and the aircraft descended into Lake Sentani. Joyce was the only person on the airplane,” according to a statement from MAF.
“Indonesian Search and Rescue divers later confirmed that Joyce did not survive the accident. The MAF staff in Papua and Jakarta are working with authorities on the investigation of the accident,” it added.
Ahmad Musthofa Kamal, a police spokesman in Papua, said Lin apparently had technical problems two minutes after takeoff and sent a distress call before losing contact with traffic control.
Rescuers found her body two hours after the crash at a depth of about 43 feet in Lake Sentani.
Lin, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduated in 2017 from the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.
She joined MAF after working for more than 10 years as a computer specialist for the international Christian agency, which delivers basic supplies and missionaries to remote areas in 13 countries, according to Salem News.
Lin, who joined MAF in 2017, was an experienced pilot but had only recently been given approval by MAF to fly solo missions, which require intense training due to the difficult terrain the pilots encounter, the news outlet reported.
In a recent newsletter sent to people who supported her work, Lin described how she had just completed her first solo flight, delivering supplies to Mamit, where she landed on an airstrip built into the side of a mountain.
Lin was later drenched with water as part of her organization’s tradition of congratulating pilots who have completed their first solos.
“For me, the solo was a culmination of a 10-year journey to become a missionary pilot,” Lin wrote, according to the Salem News. “SO many people have helped me over the span of a decade to reach this point, and I am so thankful.”
The final sentence of her MAF bio reads, “While Joyce will always be excited to fly planes and work on computers, she is most excited to share the love of Jesus Christ by helping to transform other people’s deep discouragement and mourning into dancing and joy.”
Indonesia has seen more than 15,000 COVID-19 cases and over 1,000 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Lin, who was raised in Colorado and Maryland, is survived by her parents and two sisters.
“Joyce was a light reflecting Jesus, and she will be deeply missed,” the MAF said in its statement.
With Post wires