The five men were returning to Sydney after sailing a yacht from Sydney to Proserpine in North Queensland. The aircraft was flown from proserpine to Coolangatta where the plane was refuelled for the second leg to Bankstown airport. The weather forecast was for occaisonal severe turbulence below 12,000 feet. The aircraft departed Coolangatta and subsequently at Taree at 8,000 feet. At this time Sydney air traffic control asked if clearance over Williamtown would be preferred to the planned route over Craven,the pilot indicated that it would.
He was instructed to remain outside Williamtown controlled airspace until clearance became available. Due to the delay the pilot elected to proceed on the planned flight track via Craven and Singleton. At 1919 hours he reported at Craven at 8,000 feet experiencing turbulence in cloud and was climbing to 10,000 feet.
Immediately after this he had advised that he had lost his artificial horizon and direction indicator. The aircraft was positively identified on Sydney radar at 36 miles north of Singleton and subsequently by Williamtown radar over Barrington tops. It did not appear to be maintaining a steady heading and the pilotreported that there was ice building up on the wings. He was then given a radar vector to West Maitland. The pilot then reported a major loss of altitude (2,000 feet in 2 minutes)
The final transmission received by Sydney was (5,000) the time was 1930 hours. The last radar fix on the aircraft was near Mt Cockrow in the far west of Chichester state forest. An extensive air and ground search was immediately commenced and continued for nine days without success.
Subsequently the search has been reactivated on a number of occasions in response to reports of wreckage being sighted. However no trace of the aircraft or its occupants have been found. The cause of the accident has not been determined but severe turbulence,icing and failure of the aircrafts primary flight instruments are possible factors.
The coroner determined that (paraphrased)
"That the occupants died each or seperately on or about the 9th of August 1981 when the aircraft in which they were travelling crashed into the mountains in the Barrington tops area".
The coroner did not attribute the blame to the pilot or to the lack of airworthiness of the aircraft.
He was instructed to remain outside Williamtown controlled airspace until clearance became available. Due to the delay the pilot elected to proceed on the planned flight track via Craven and Singleton. At 1919 hours he reported at Craven at 8,000 feet experiencing turbulence in cloud and was climbing to 10,000 feet.
Immediately after this he had advised that he had lost his artificial horizon and direction indicator. The aircraft was positively identified on Sydney radar at 36 miles north of Singleton and subsequently by Williamtown radar over Barrington tops. It did not appear to be maintaining a steady heading and the pilotreported that there was ice building up on the wings. He was then given a radar vector to West Maitland. The pilot then reported a major loss of altitude (2,000 feet in 2 minutes)
The final transmission received by Sydney was (5,000) the time was 1930 hours. The last radar fix on the aircraft was near Mt Cockrow in the far west of Chichester state forest. An extensive air and ground search was immediately commenced and continued for nine days without success.
Subsequently the search has been reactivated on a number of occasions in response to reports of wreckage being sighted. However no trace of the aircraft or its occupants have been found. The cause of the accident has not been determined but severe turbulence,icing and failure of the aircrafts primary flight instruments are possible factors.
The coroner determined that (paraphrased)
"That the occupants died each or seperately on or about the 9th of August 1981 when the aircraft in which they were travelling crashed into the mountains in the Barrington tops area".
The coroner did not attribute the blame to the pilot or to the lack of airworthiness of the aircraft.
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