Plane Crash Benalla January/February 2002?

[Tim E]

Wondering if anyone can help with information on this.

 

I was attending a music festival at Mt Buffalo on the Sunday. I am sure it was either the Australia Day weekend or weekend after..and fairly sure it was 2002 (perhaps one year either side at most). A plane flew very low over the top of Mt Buffalo and the engine seemed to be revving. Could clearly see the pilot (a quite famous American female pilot/aviatrix) as the plane was so low..it flew in a direct line toward Benalla airport but crashed a few kilometers short. The plane was definitely an old plane from the 1930's or thereabouts.

 

Can anyone recall this and can provide me with a bit more information on the pilot, the plane and the cause of the crash?

 

It was one of those situations where I felt something was wrong as the plane flew overhead..but only found out about the crash the next day in the newspapers. Gratefully. Tim :)

 

 

[Robbo]

Tim..

 

The only ones that come up in the Australian Transport Safety Bureough are

 

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... 01905.aspx

 

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... 02797.aspx

 

 

[Tim E]

Thanks for checking Robbo..yes one of those happened quite near here where I live.Very bad weather conditons that day in July.

 

The Mt. Buffalo /Benalla one is hard to find. Apparently the aviatrix was well known for flying vinatge aircraft and she did get awfully close to Benalla but not quite. Think she was doing some round the world trip or similar in her vintage plane.

 

The revving motor..almost seemed as if it was cutting out then revving up again..thought at the time that it had something to do with her getting enough height to clear the mountain (which she did..but not by much as I could see her head/face clearly). Thought later it could have been a low fuel issue..like how my ride on revs just prior to running out of fuel. Any thoughts on that ? Wondwering how far she could glide with no fuel between the top of Mt Buffalo and Benalla. Are there any strategies pilots can use to get as much glide out of their aircraft as they can when out of fuel? :?:

 

 

[Robbo]

oh hang on.... you sure she was killed? There was a women completing the london to syd or melbourne air race in a chieftain and the plane is sitting on the tarmac at albury airport and it hasent moved in years! It had some mechanical problems.

 

But she just left it here.... i got a pic somewhere i will try and find it.

 

Maybe thats it ?

 

 

[Tim E]

Sounds interesting Robbo..would like to hear more on that one..and maybe have a look at the plane next time I'm up there.

 

But this was a really old plane 1930's..and she seemed to be wearing the old headgear and goggles and maybe even a scarf (though not sure on the latter)..checked a few pics of old planes..and she was definitely killed...only a couple of kms from safety at Benalla unfortunately. Saw some pics of old planes when I was searching a while back ...might see if I can re-find the one that was closest to her plane if I can.

 

 

[Robbo]

cannot recall it....

 

As for glide strageties at depends on the aircraft as procedures vary for each aircraft. (e.g a twin engine chieftain would be differet to a Cessna 150)

 

 

[Tim E]

Thanks for checking Robbo..would like to hear more on the Piper Chieftain one at some stage too..glad it had a happy ending...and see if I can spot the plane next time I'm in Albury. Will send a pic of the vintage plane if I find it. It seemed to have a longish front section and the pilot was seated well back from the nose.

 

 

[Robbo]

give me a couple of minutes and i will get you a pic

 

 

[Tim E]

Wondering whether the pilot in the Benalla crash was Grace McGuire..American Aviatrix? Tried googling but didn't come up with much on her. Yes thanks for the pic if you can find it..

 

 

[Robbo]

dodgy mobile phone pic but its the one in the middle. Got a better pic somewhere.

 

 

 

[Tim E]

Thanks for the pic mate....sad its just sitting there..hope she or someone else is able to get it going again one day.

 

 

[Robbo]

"Flight will vindicate Earhart" - Aviatrix +++ American pilot Grace McGuire and Navigator to recreate Amelia Earhart's flight in a Lockheed 10E

 

Amelia Earhart & Lockheed Electra

 

MURIEL was a bit undressed on Saturday morning, her propellers and outboard wings detached as mechanics prepared her 70-year-old twin engines for a journey back through time, back through a cloudy course over the Pacific in search of the answer to the most frequently asked question in aviation history: What happened to Amelia Earhart?

 

Muriel, a 1935 Lockheed Electra L-10E, is the same model of airplane - and believed to be the last in existence - flown by Earhart in 1937, the year she tried to become the first female pilot to fly round the world and seemed to vanish into thin air.

 

One woman's desire to solve that mystery is being refueled at Allaire Airport in Belmar, N.J. Grace McGuire, 54, a pilot, is hoping to recreate and successfully complete Earhart's final voyage.

 

"This is my dream, to do this as a tribute to Amelia," said Ms. McGuire, of Rumson, N.J., who named Muriel after Earhart's younger sister, Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, who died in 1998 at age 98.

 

On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and the navigator Frederick J. Noonan, who had completed two-thirds of their spin round the globe's waist, disappeared while trying to land on Howland Island, about 2,600 miles east of New Guinea, their previous stop. Despite search efforts, no trace of them or their plane was found.

 

Many theories have been expressed about Earhart's disappearance, one suggesting that she was on a spy mission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and captured by the Japanese, who forced her to broadcast as Tokyo Rose in World War II.

 

Ms. McGuire says that if her dream takes flight, she will prove that the 39-year-old Earhart was the victim of faulty coordinates. She claims to have documented proof - a journal kept by a Howland colonist in 1937 - that the aviatrix and her navigator, desperate to land as their fuel was nearly exhausted, survived after ditching their plane in the ocean and boarding a raft, but eventually succumbed to the heat and shark-infested waters.

 

"If Muriel and I can get back up there using my coordinates," she said, "we can quiet a lot of people who have been making a mess of history."

 

Getting back up there hasn't been easy. Shortly after Ms. McGuire rescued Muriel from a scrap yard in 1984, she contracted Lyme disease, leaving her too weak to deal with financial backers willing to sponsor a trip that makes 32 connections and will cost millions of dollars.

 

Five years ago, she began feeling strong enough to resume chasing Earhart's destiny. Rivet by rusted rivet, Muriel's restoration is being further slowed by Ms. McGuire's insistence on using only the instrumentation and engine parts available in 1935. "If my conditions are not exactly the same as Amelia's," Ms. McGuire said, "what's the point?" [/img]

 

Today's adventurers must contend with the irksome truth that much of what is grand and gallant has already been done. What remains is to repeat the great feats of the past in a more difficult manner or to invent stunts whose nature is often, necessarily, more than somewhat bizarre. Thus we see the attempt by Mountaineer Tabin's group to climb Everest by an approach once thought foolhardy, and the astonishing accomplishment of Italian Superclimber Reinhold Messner three years ago of reaching Everest's summit alone and without oxygen. The variety of labors that the new adventurers think up for themselves these days is rich and nutty and, in contemplation, forms a splendid fruitcake of the hu man spirit. Mighty aerial voyages are undertaken in planes as fragile as moths, and transatlantic crossings are made in sailboats only marginally longer than their pilots. There are specialists in climbing frozen waterfalls and skiing slopes too steep to stand on, and in exploring underwater, with scuba gear, caves so deep that helium must be mixed with the oxygen that is breathed, to forestall nitrogen narcosis. A couple of canoeists have just lined their craft up the Grand Canyon and portaged the Rockies. An unemployed actress named Julie Ridge swam twice around Manhattan Island this summer (about 28 miles); although the publicity did not bring her a job, she said she felt better about herself.

 

Glittery-eyed monomaniacs jump off cliffs and buildings with parachutes, because this is more dangerous than humdrum skydiving. People climb skyscrapers, both on the inside (in organized races up stairways) and on the outside. One of the nerveless outside operatives, "Spider Dan" Goodwin, managed to lever himself up the Sears Tower in Chicago despite efforts of affronted city firemen to hose him away. And at an airfield in New Jersey, Pilot Grace McGuire, who bears an eerie resemblance to the late Amelia Earhart, will assemble a 1936 Lockheed Electra 10E, the kind of plane Earhart used, with the intention of next year completing the famed barnstormer's fatal last flight in the Pacific. She plans to take only equipment identical to that on Earhart's plane. Her fuel will give her 21 hours of flying for the 2,556-mile first leg from Lae, New Guinea, to Rowland Island in mid-Pacific, which allows "not much reserve."

 

These are the extremes of adventuring, but people who consider themselves ordinary are doing things that would have been thought outlandish ten years ago. Rafting the Colorado River now seems almost sedentary, and trekking in the Himalayas is no more than an extended outing. Sane and prudent citizens sign up for ice-climbing lessons and for bicycle tours across China. Your neighbor's teen-ager hang-glides. It is hardly worth mentioning when a 50-year-old man or woman runs a marathon, although the triathlon, which may consist of a long swim, a bike race and a complete running marathon on the same day, still raises a few eyebrows.

Don't think it is her because this article was published in 2005[/img]

 

 

[Robbo]

That DC in the pic is the one that made an emergency landing in Albury during the air race. It used to be on display at albury airport but they pulled it down and are currently restorting it for public display again. http://www.alburycity.nsw.gov.au/help/uiver.htm

 

Sorry the pic is so small i had to shrink it, you cant even see the plane. I will try and find the up close and clear pic tommorow.

 

 

[Robbo]

Thanks for the pic mate....sad its just sitting there..hope she or someone else is able to get it going again one day.

The women still owns it, She left it and went back to London.. Its condition is not to well and its deteriating every day!

 

 

[Tim E]

Thanks Robbo..will follow up on it too...thought Grace McGuire might have been the one but the article says 2005..a couple of years after the crash..the mystery deepens! LOL Catch you tomorrow..

 

 

[Tim E]

Plane Crash Benalla

 

Wonder what her plans are..maybe she will sell it to somoene here who can fix and restore her.

 

Have an idea re info on the plane crash..will go back to the local paper where I read about it the next day..should be able to access past editions in local library or at the Chronicle itself..the owner would be happy to help..that might give a starting point perhaps with name, date etc.

 

 

[Robbo]

I was going to suggest contating the local newspaper, im sure they can search for it on there database.

 

 

[Tim E]

Plane Crash Benalla

 

Yes..should give us some information..and maybe allow further invetigation from there on her background, the plane, the full circumstances etc.

 

 

[Robbo]

dont expect it to be the accurate truth we all know what the "media" is like !!!

 

 

[Tim E]

LOL!

 

From my memory it was just a brief article of a few lines..remember feeling a bit shocked having seen the craft and pilot only minutes before the end...and then picking up the paper next day or day after and reading that it had crashed.

 

It was so low overhead when it came over..we were up the top of Mt. Buffalo near Cresta Lodge from memory..in the crater with all the big moonscape rocks around..think she might have been struggling to get over the top at that stage..then a clear run to Benalla on descent path but unfortunatley didn't quite get there.

 

 

[Tim E]

Plane Crash Benalla

 

Did my research at "The Chronicle" and then at the Library. Was first week of February 2001..an English female pilot flying a motorised glider (so much for my knowledge of planes in those days..probably hasn't improved all that much either!) Crashed at Winton in paddock off Greta Rd, not all that far from Benalla airport.

 

She was a member of the Benalla Glider Club..and used to come out once a year to take part in gliding out here.

 

CASA were investigating..wonder if it shows up in their records? I checked once and couldn't find it. Also Vic Glider Federation was also investigating, according to the Chronicle.

 

Someone at Benalla Airport might know more..or a member of the Glider Club there..I might catch up with someone there at find out more if I can.

 

 

[Robbo]

casa wont know.. it will be http://www.atsb.gov.au

 

 

[Tim E]

Thanks Robbo..wow that is an interesting site..and educational to me to see they they were making recommendations to CASA.

 

Couldnt find any information on specific incidents/crashes though..might have missed in whilst perusing. A good historical reminder too of some of the incidents/issues back in 2000-2001 :)

 

 

[Guest g_i_jack029]

hey tim, there's a wrecked a/c, twin engine sitting out the front of an auto yard in benalla, you know what it is, sorry i don't know the exact location of it but it's on the road that leads to the Freeway...i think

 

what type of a/c is it, both engines have been flogged:|

 

i wanna buy it lol

 

 

[Tim E]

HI Gi jack. been down that way in a while..I usually by pass on the freeway or come into Benalla the back way. I wonder if anyone else knows re the plane? :D