Gavin Grimmer

Hi Nev,

Looks like you are my "counterpart" in Oz.

I have a website www.findlostaircraft.co.nz and I have several missing aircraft "on the go" that I'm trying to find and hence the reason for the website.

One of my visitors to my site put me on to your blogsite and I must say you have put in a lot of effort and a lot of information on it - well done!

I've spent a bit of time going over the information that you, and others, have put there, and I've listened to the tape recording.

I'd need to check it out further, but it appears to me that going by the "compass swinging like blazes" could indicate that he was possibly over Iron mines or the like, and I notice on Google Earth that there is a opencast mine at Craven.

The ADF "going all over the place" could indicate that he was out of range or in a position of poor reception of the signal that he was beaming onto - which was probably Sydney?

Another thing is that his Altimeter could have been reading the wrong altitude as going by the available information that you have on your site, there is no mention of a request for the local QNH.
The high winds to me would indicate that there was a very steep pressure gradient in the area. If he was in a lower pressure area to that of where he last set his altimeter to, then that would mean that he was a lot lower than he thought he was. This would explain him getting ice at 8000 to 8500ft when VH-ESV said that there was no cloud above 8000ft. No water vapour - no ice!

I get the impression that when he said "5000" he was going down fast, seconds away from crashing, and this would also explain him dropping off the radar at that time.

Do you have the weather forecast for that day, particularly a synoptic?

If you can find out the QNH for Coolangatta on the day and the QNH for the area he disappeared in, then you would have a much better idea of how far out his altimeter was.

To my way of thinking, he didn't have problems with icing until two minutes before they last heard from him so it is unlikely that he went down due to ice.
It is more likely that he either got into the lee of a hill and got caught in a strong downdraft, or he was in a spiral dive due to disorientation. 76 kts of wind is rather extreme conditions to be flying in.

I see the Air force photographed a lot of the area that they thought MDX may have gone down in. Do you have access to these photos?

In the other areas that your blogsite visitors think it may be in, do they have access to old aerial photos in those areas?

Why I ask is that one of my methods I use to attempt to locate long lost aircraft is by overlaying aerial photos that were taken soon after the event on Google Earth, and then it is possible to zoom in, go into 3D mode, and have a good look around. If you find anything interesting, then you can use the measuring tool on GE to check out whether the "wreckage" you see is of the correct size.

As you know, things change a lot over the years and any wreckage becomes buried or overgrown, so using this method is in effect going back in time!
I get most of my photos from a local Aerial Mapping business and the photos are taken from anything from 16,000ft to 26,000ft and are generally in very high resolution.

I've found, in our bush over here, that it is virtually impossible to locate a crashed aircraft that has been lost for quite a few years by hovering over the bush in a helicopter, and I'm told by SAR that it is still very difficult if it has just happened. I would say that our bush here is one of the densest bush in the World though.

I hope some of this may be of benefit to you, or your viewers, as I find that any ideas that gets your mind to broaden it's outlook is very beneficial.

Many regards,

Gavin Grimmer
Hastings
New Zealand
www.findlostaircraft.co.nz