VH-EKT  Piper PA-23-250 Aztec C                              (c /n  27-3671)

                                 

                                     Delivered to Australia as N6446Y, VH-EKT was registered in October 1967.  David Carter saw it
                                     at Bankstown in 1976 in the faded markings of Thorpe’s Transport, which operated from Thursday
                                     Island in the Torres Strait.            In July 1978, –EKT was cancelled from the register as sold in the
                                     Solomon Islands.      It became H4-AAX on the register of the newly independent nation. It went to
                                     Vanuatu in May 1981 as YJ-RV10 before returning to the Solomons in January 1987 as H4-WPA
                                     with Western Pacific Air Service     The Aztec was sold in February 1998 to an American charity,
                                     Search for One, as N98WA.    However,  it did not leave the Pacific and was used as an air amb-
                                     ulance in Kiribati to bring patients to the capital, Tarawa, for treatment. The Piper was finally with-
                                     drawn from use in 2014 after almost 50 years in  the salty air of tropical islands