Monitoring Desk:World tour of Haris and his father Babar Suleman ended with an air crash in sea. World tour in 30 days for raising funds for education ended with an air crash of 17 year-old American-born Pakistani Haris Suleman and his father Babar Suleman. They took off from Pago Pago International Airport (PPG/NSTU) American Samoa and their beach-craft crashed in sea just 5 km off of the airport.
Pago Pago airport was not in their itinerary but they had to go there for refueling as there was no fuel available at Kiritimati. Haris Sulman in his tweet of July 22 said as:
No fuel in Kiritimati, going from New Caledonia to Pago Pago, then direct Hawaii. That’s about 21 hours of flying in two days.
On July 22– last tweet of Haris indicates how much he love beauty of Pago Pago:
Pago Pago is without a doubt top 5 places I’ve been this summer 🙂
— BonanzaBoi (@worldrounder) July 22, 2014
Hiba Sulman on her facebook confirmed that dead body of Haris has been recovered while there is no news yet about her father. She said in her message:
Before the news breaks, I’d like to thank everyone for their support of my father and brother throughout this trip, as well as for the support given to my mom, brother and myself as we waited for their safe return.
Haris and my dad’s plane went down upon take off in American Samoa. Haris has been found- he did not make it. My father has not yet been found. Please pray that my dad is found alive and well. Also, hug your siblings and parents- tell them you love them, a hundred time. A thousand times. It will never feel like it’s been said quite often enough.
On July 16, Haris was missing his home saying that 9 days are left to reach home and they (his father and Haris) had to travel day and night to reach home they are missing.
He tweeted on July 16 as:
9 days away from home. I’ll be flying every day starting tomorrow in order to get back! See you soon Indy 🙂
— BonanzaBoi (@worldrounder) July 16, 2014
Babar Suleman lasted update his blog on July 20 as :
Bali is to the Australians what Key West is to the Americans. Run over by tourists, commercialized and set up for everyone looking to make a quick buck. The main beneficiaries of this commercialization are the big corporations that have the same outlets and stores that they have opened in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Bali. The locals have been left to scrape the bottom while the tourist hordes descend upon the Batik shops, wood carving shops and the jewelry makers shops like there is no tomorrow. Just when one starts to enjoy a nice scenery, a bus load of tourists arrives and messes up the scene. This is not what I had in mind when I wanted to visit Bali….frankly, I am a little disappointed.
Upon arrival, our handlers brought us to the B&B where we were going to stay. Slightly off the beaten path, quiet and serene surroundings. After we settled in our room, we decided to go out for dinner. With our recent track record with food borne illness we decided to find a place to eat that we could trust. Off we went in search, but did not have to go far. We found this Italia restaurant that looked good and they had a live band playing. We decided to park ourselves there and ordered our favorite meals, with Haris that was Pizza, more so since he had to had any ever since he got sick. I also decided to play it safe and ordered some grilled chicken breast. While we were eating, the band asked the diners if anyone had a special request; Haris feeling homesick requested Hotel California, they obliged and were not bad. After dinner we went for a stroll and stopped at one of the few hundred tour guides. We were able to hire a private taxi for quite a reasonable amount for the next day. The next day our tour guide and his driver arrived at the appointed time and we were ready as well. After a brief discussion about how the day was going to be planned, we set out on our tour of Bali. Our first stop, along with hundreds of other tourists, was the Batik shop. We were given a tour of the process needed to develop the Batik designs, which turned out to be quite labor intensive. There was also a show room right next to it where the tourists were encouraged to spend some money and buy souvenirs for their loved ones. We played our part and bought a few items for our near and dear ones. Our next stop was the art center where we saw how the Bali art was produced. Haris decided to buy a souvenir for home and since it did not weigh much, I agreed. From there we made our way to the wood carving district. The teak, mahogany and hibiscus carvings were very nice, but their prices had been appropriately elevated for the Australian tourists. Haris and I did not want any items with any significant weight as we still had a little bit of Indian and a whole lot of Pacific Ocean to cross. Our need for fuel was far greater than a wood carving, so we passed and left. We also found out that Australia does not allow any food items and items made out of wood to be brought in. We decided to press on and decided to visit the Volcano, but along the way was something quite interesting as it was made to order for the Australian tourists. It was the Luwak coffee. This contraption was first grown as the Bali Coffee and then there is this exotic cat like animal that eats the coffee bean, but it only eats the ripe red shell and swallows the rest of the coffee bean, which the goes thru some chemical transformation and is then excreted out by the animal. Lots of Balinese pickers scour the hill sides looking for this excrement. It is then brought in and washed in hot water, cleaned out and then roasted on a wok. Once roasted, this is ground into powdered coffee and is the most expensive coffee they sell in these farms. All tourists make is a mission in their life to actually drink this coffee. At these coffee farms they also sold other more normal kinds of coffees and teas, that we decided to buy and bring back in small quantities. The volcano park turned out to be more of the same with hordes of tourists and locals trying to sell trinkets that we declined to buy. Our tour guide wanted us to visit one of the temples next, but we requested a visit to the monkey temple, which is monkey sanctuary. These are smaller sized monkeys, not the larger kind that may look like chimps. Haris tried to get cute and take a selfie with one of them, but that guy was not amused and he attacked Haris, but could only grab his shirt. I jumped in towards the monkey and Haris was able to pull away from it. Monkey’s have a sacred spot in the Hindu mythology and Bali being 95% hindu, this was probably a testament to them being sacred.
At this point Haris and I decided to call it a day and come back to see the sunset from across the street from our hotel. As we got to the beach, apart from more tourists, side of the sky where the sun was going to set was all clouded up. So, we took some touristy pictures and decided to catch an early dinner as we had to depart for Darwin Australia the next morning over the Indian Ocean. Playing it rather safe, we both unanimously voted for the same place we had dinner the night before. We grabbed a quick dinner and came back to our hotel room to prepare for our departure from Bali. All night long the drunk Australians kept noisily coming back to their hotel rooms until it was time for us to get up and get going. Our handling agent arrived right on time and took us back to the Bali airport. We paid our bills, filed our flight plan and were ready to go. On reflection, Bali ended up being way below our expectations. One thing that stood out in Malaysia and Indonesia was the level of corruption. We heard a lot of people complaining about corruption in Malaysia, but there was also a lot of development. In Indonesia, however, the level of corruption was much higher as our tour guide had to grease the plams twice during the day while we were being toured around. There did not seem to be a lot of development done at the state level as it was in Malaysia…
Meanwhile, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor in Los Angeles said the single-engine Hawker Beechcraft plane crashed into the ocean Tuesday night under unknown circumstances. The tail number provided by the FAA shows the plane is registered to a limited liability corporation whose address matches Babar Suleman’s home address in Plainfield, Indiana, west of Indianapolis. U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Melissa McKenzie said witnesses reported seeing the Honolulu-bound plane crash about a mile from shore shortly after taking off from Pago Pago International Airport.
The plane flown by 17-year-old Haris Suleman went down shortly after leaving Pago Pago in American Samoa Tuesday night. Suleman and his father, Babar Suleman, were on board. Hayat said the body of Haris Suleman had been recovered, but crews were still looking for his father.
