Benedict Allen allies defend rescued explorer against backlash

Friends of the explorer Benedict Allen, who has been rescued in Papua New Guinea, have defended him against criticism that taking a solo trip without tracking devices was self-indulgent.

Allen, who has built a broadcast and writing career on nine previous near-death experiences, was picked up by helicopter from a remote airstrip on Friday after missing a planned flight home last weekend.

Some on social media have questioned whether his disappearance was a publicity stunt. But allies of Allen, who is believed to have contracted malaria, suggest he is annoyed by the worldwide interest in his latest jungle scrape.

Before he went missing, one of his last communications with the outside world was a knowing reference to the famous last words of the doomed Edwardian explorer Lawrence Oates. “I may be some time (don’t try to rescue me, please – where I’m going in PNG, you won’t ever find me),” Allen tweeted.

His agent Jo Sarsby insisted it was “utterly not true” to suggest news of Allen’s plight had been spread for PR purposes. She told the Guardian she had raised the alarm with the media this week after being told by Allen’s wife, Lenka, that he was missing.

She said: “It was us I suppose that caused all this problem, but how could we have found him without the publicity? I’ve seen accusations on Facebook that this was a hoax and I thought ‘poor Benedict’, because it was not.

“I had a quick chat with him and he really isn’t feeling very well. He’s not thrilled by it because he’s an explorer like Pen Hadow and Ranulph Fiennes and that’s what they do. He’s not feeling great about the press all being involved.”

Allen’s rescue was coordinated by a Hong Kong-based fixer, Steven Ballantyne, who has worked with him on previous assignments to the area.

“It was through the press and it going kind of viral that people got on to to Steven,” Sarsby claimed.

Ballantyne said media coverage had not hindered the rescue but had given the false impression that Allen was in physical danger from the very people who help him to safety.

Allen had been seeking to reconnect with the Yaifo tribe, one of the few left in the world that has virtually no contact with the outside world, whom he visited 30 years ago. The Daily Mail described it as a “quest to reach a lost tribe of headhunters”.

Ballantyne said: “Benedict has had quite an adventure and we should be proud that he, with the help of many amazing people in PNG, came so far.

“Personally I would not have alerted the press, but this was not my call. The media attention has sadly given a very poor and misleading view of Papua New Guinea.”

Ballantyne said he had advised Allen against travelling alone in the area without a satellite phone or tracking device.

“My part was simply to help another who was potentially in trouble – trouble of his own making due to his chosen method of travel,” he said.

Allen, who has three young children, is known to have annoyed his family by travelling without a tracking devices.

Alex Hibbert, a polar expedition leader who knows Allen, said his family had every right to complain. “His family have reason to dole out a serious dressing down. It’s avoidably fatalistic to do away with a tiny PLB [personal locator beacon]. I gather he is highly motivated by doing things ‘properly’ and by self-reliance. He seems to be a genuinely gifted and decent man, but not one incapable of making a mistake.”

He added: “Benedict is a man with a serious track record of competent solo travel and isn’t from the next generation of jack-of-all-trades adventurers, many of whom put style and Instagram before real substance. This means that he is more resourceful than most but [is someone] for whom nostalgia or purity could potentially trump the adoption of modern safety equipment.”

As well as shunning modern devices, Allen is known to have a weakness for colonial-era nicknacks. His favourite piece of furniture is an Indian chest given to his great-grandfather by Rudyard Kipling, and he owns a handwritten note from General Charles Gordon, who ordered the siege of Khartoum.

Allen had been due to give one of his frequent talks about his dangerous exploits to the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong on Tuesday. As he was lost in the jungle at the time, his audience missed out on stories of how he ate his own dog to survive in the Amazon, and how he was shot at by drug barons in Colombia.

In a 2012 TedxSalford talk, Allen explained why he was drawn to such exploits. “For me it’s about making me feel alive. It is incredibly exhilarating to pull off these journeys,” he said.

“It is said that I’m someone who’s almost died nine times, but the fact of the matter is I haven’t died, perhaps due to two things: preparation and belief in myself.”

Denis Crowdy, an ethnomusicologist based at Macquarie University in Sydney who spent more than 10 years in Papua New Guinea, said Allen’s approach was an embarrassment. He said he and many of his contacts in the country were angry about press coverage of Allen’s plight.

“Anthropologists were also deeply cynical, clearly recognising Allen and his genre of exoticist square-jawed Boy’s Own adventurer Royal Geographical Society lecture tour self-indulgence,” Crowdy said.

“Why should we care about a lost, unprepared, silly, white privileged male middle-aged fool? All of the stories have been solely focused on his ‘safety’, when PNG faces some real challenges that are genuinely worthy of reporting.”

After Allen’s rescue, Ballantyne hopes he will use the opportunity to change his approach. He said: “My hope is that in time Benedict will be able to put to rest the far-fetched claims made by some media reports.”