Mike Hutchins Pilot of VH-MDX which crashed on the 9th of August 1981 and the victim of a second air crash had worked for a Sydney company that helped develop a top secret sonar defence system to detect russian submarines. Hutchins and Stuart Sims were employed as engineers by Electronic Systems and Management Services of North Sydney and were party to the Official Secrets Act.
Sim's died on the 27th of December 1980 when the Piper Tomahawk he was flying crashed into Lake Macquarie. An article in the "Australian" newspaper said that the commercial manager of ESMS rejected any suggestion that the deaths of Hutchins and Sims were related to the work in which they were both involved.
This is just one of the many theories that make up the mystery surrounding the dissappearance of MDX. In all the years of research on this subject I have heard them all. They were gun running, transporting drugs,someone even told me that there was a bloke who knew a bloke who knew a journalist that had a photo of the plane sitting on the runway of Darwin airport two days later. Another one was that the plane crashed into Chichester dam because there was an oil slick found on the water surface. Well that theory was also blown out of the water so to speak. A sample was taken and analysed and found to be a type of algae bloom. No traces of aeroplane oil or fuel was found.
Everyone loves a mystery including me. These stories about drugs and guns spice up the story but the facts remain that it was an accident where contributing factors all played their parts in the tradgedy. The pilot was offered an alternate route, He did'nt want to wait for clearance. He continued on his original track. The winds over the mountains that night were 70 knots. Only a pilot or a sailor would understand how powerful those winds were. Add ice on the wings plus faulty navigational equipment and you had a recipe for disaster.
A book I can recommend to read is "Crash - the search for the Stinson" or "Green Valley by Bernard O'reilly" You realise that normal people get caught up in the hysteria of the event and want to believe they heard or saw something. I remember reading that at least a dozen or so people swore they saw the Stinson fly overhead in the Sydney or Hawkesbury area. When in fact the Stinson crashed in the Lamington state forest in Queensland only an hour into its flight.
So stay sceptical and remember that Newspaper information is never to be trusted.
