CAC Mustang – Aviation Historical Society of Australia

DerekB27/04/202204/06/2023

The Aircraft Projects of Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation

This new book by author and AHSA member Joe Vella has just been published (April 2022). Joe began writing this book in 1983 when...

DerekB29/09/202027/12/2022

Australian-built Aircraft and the Industry (Vol 2) by Keith Meggs

The latest book released by author Keith Meggs Volume 2 of this encyclopaedic work (containing only one chapter, being chapter 15, spread across two...

1943 Catalina A24-50 of 11 Squadron RAAF went missing on 2 September 1943 while on a long range sortie with the loss of its 10 man crew. The wreckage of the aircraft was found 75 years later in the jungles of West Papua. In the late afternoon of 2 September 1943, A24-50 (FJ-E) took off from a refuelling stop at Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria on a mission to mine the Sorong Harbour on the western end of Dutch New Guinea. Piloted by FLGOFF James Oliver, a 28 year old from Balranald, the aircraft had already flown from its base at Cairns on what was a long range and risky mission that would take over 25 hours flying. Shortly before midnight, the aircraft failed to respond to a radio call from the Cairns base. Nothing was heard from the aircraft again. By late the next day the aircraft and crew were declared missing. Searches failed to find any evidence of the aircraft or its crew and a final report in 1946 only listed the aircraft and its crew as missing in action. The crew also included FLGOFF Edward Carrington-Smith (2nd pilot) of Perth, Tasmania, FLGOFF John Walter Bissett Amess (3rd pilot) of Newcastle, NSW, PLTOFF Edward Matthews Howe (Navigator) of Kingsford, NSW, PLTOFF Athol Stewart Boyd (Wireless/Air gunner) of Ashbuly, NSW, FSGT Richard George Hobbs (Wireless/air gunner) of Harvey, WA, SGT Malville Beckman Tyrrel (Gunner) of Townsville, QLD, CPL Alexander Burns (Gunner) of Prahran, VIC, CPL Ian Lott Penrose (Gunner) of Aldgate, SA, and LAC Alexander Headley Crouch (Gunner) of Bungeworggorai, QLD. Only several days earlier on 31 August, the same aircraft was slightly damaged by anti aircraft fire on a similar mission over Madura Island near Surabaya, Java. 75 years later in April 2018, local forestry workers found the remains of the aircraft in mountains near Fakfak on the western end of the Bomberai Peninsula, West Papua, Indonesia, southeast of Sorong. A subsequent search mission by the RAAF confirmed the wreckage as being that of A24-50 and brought back to Australia specific parts of the wreckage for the Australian War Memorial. Large pieces of the aircraft including the tail, propellers, engine and fuselage were found in the jungle. On 18 July 2021, a Memorial Service was held at the Catalina Memorial, on the Cairns Esplanade. A plaque was unveiled and a 11 SQN RAAF P-8A Poseidon aircraft conducted a flypast in honour of the 10 RAAF crew of A24-50 who perished on 2 September 1943. Source: Air Force Association - SA Division

1986 Piper PA-31 Navajo VH-CJB crashed 10 km WSW of Cairns, QLD on 2 September 1986. The pilot hired the aircraft privately from his employer to conduct a holiday flight during his leave. The journey commenced at Moorabbin on 25 August and the aircraft arrived at Cairns about midday 30 August, after stopovers at Coolangatta and Proserpine. The pilot and his passengers then spent the next three days at leisure in the Cairns area. On the day of the accident, the pilot attended the Cairns Briefing Office where he collected the relevant weather forecasts and submitted a flight plan. The flight plan indicated that the flight would be conducted in accordance with Instrument Flight Rules. It contained a deficiency in that no details were given for the first route segment from Cairns to Biboohra. It is apparent that the pilot had not noticed that the tracks to the west of Cairns, on the relevant enroute chart, emanate from Biboohra and not Cairns. There was no track line which joined Cairns and Biboohra. Such a line might have alerted the pilot at the time he planned the flight. The error in the flight plan was not detected when the plan was submitted. When the pilot was issued with an airways clearance prior to DEPARTURE it was apparent that he did not understand the terms of the clearance, which gave the initial tracking point as Biboohra. The location of this point was explained to the pilot and he subsequently accepted the clearance. He elected to depart using visual procedures, after being offered a choice of these or the published Standard Instrument DEPARTURE profile. A visual DEPARTURE from the particular runway in use allows an aircraft proceeding towards Biboorha to intercept the required track sooner than is possible with an instrument DEPARTURE. The aircraft was issued with takeoff instructions which included clearance for the pilot to make a right turn after takeoff. Witnesses observed that the aircraft complied with this clearance and headed in a south-westerly direction before turning to the north-west and subsequently entering cloud. The cloud base was estimated to be between 2000 and 2500 feet above mean sea level. No further communications were received from the aircraft and a search was commenced that afternoon. The search effort was hampered by the weather and the wreckage was not located until the following afternoon. Inspection of the wreckage indicated that the aircraft struck the the top of a ridge line, 250 metres south-west of the highest point of the Mount William area, 10 km west-south-west of Cairns, Queensland. At the time, the aircraft was on a west-north-westerly heading, flying wings level and climbing at a angle of about five degrees. No fault was found with the aircraft that could have contributed to the occurrence. At the time the aircraft entered cloud, the pilot should have reverted to Instrument Flight Rules procedures. To comply with these procedures a pilot is required, inter alia, to ensure that adequate terrain clearance is achieved during climb to the lowest safe altitude. The relevant altitude for the route segment Cairns to Biboohra is 4500 feet above mean sea level (amsl). As the aircraft was apparently under control at the time of impact with the ground at about 3250 feet amsl, it was likely that the pilot had overlooked the lowest safe altitude requirements. All eight persons on board (pilot and seven passengers) were killed Sources: ATSB; aviation-safety.net website

1999 In a second attempted landing, during severe weather at Perth Airport on 2 September 1999, the number 1 engine of Qantas Boeing 747 VH-EBS struck the ground. There were no injuries to passengers or crew. Source: ATSB Investigation Report 199904384, 2 March 2000. via aph.gov.au website