Flooding at Murwillumbah airport

[SGM]

Sad. 
In the middle of the photo is the white top of someone's fuselage, a vertical and part of a black prop. 
To the left is a flying boat.  I had a chat to this owner when I visited December, (at that stage he was putting the finishing touches on the restoration and preparing for a first flight - the Tweed River is not too far away)

In the background, on the other side of the North-South runway, are two hanger buildings also well underwater.

Edited February 27, 2022 by SGM

[RossK]

Devastating!

[FlyBoy1960]

there were 3 or 4 aircraft in photos from the airfield yesterday. They could not have moved them out because the runway was partially flooded. I suspect there are going to be many more aircraft destroyed at this airfield. Perhaps the others have floated away.

[SGM]

still rising

 

[facthunter]

Record breaking wet. Nev

[onetrack]

I don't understand why the owners didn't move the aircraft out to higher ground when they became aware of the potential of heavy flooding.

It's not like they had no warning, and no time to shift the aircraft, and it's not like this has never happened before in this region.

[KRviator]

Were these ones flyable? Sounds like the floatplane wasn't quite there yet, and was the runway serviceable or waterlogged to the point you wouldn't have been able to get airborne?

[facthunter]

Even if you did get airborne the cloud and rain is not a place to be flying. To get away from the coast flying over higher ground would probably have you in cloud.  Nev

[KRviator]

Looks to be going down slightly... At least ol' mates float-thingy is fairly watertight! 


I think that farther one is a Comanche but not sure what the nearer one is. Sad to see another one of those get written off. Though they are corrosion proofed from the factory, and it is fresh(ish) water....🤞


 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Is Gympie airfield OK?

 

[facthunter]

Gympie copped it earlier on.  Nev

[red750]

1 hour ago, KRviator said:

not sure what the nearer one is.

Possibly a Grumman AA5?

[PapaFox]

Looking through the cam archives can, I can only feel for the owners of the active aircraft

[KRviator]

how do you find the archives PF? 

[PapaFox]

The archive these came from is via windy.com . They have the webcam layer with all sorts of cams. Unfortunately, going past 24hrs is a bit useless as it only gives nighttime shots

[KRviator]

AAhh, gotcha. 🙂

We have one on our hangar but I never bothered to ask Brent how to go about accessing the archived images. AIUI they're stored on the server for 7 days.

[KRviator]

Here's the scene from Murwillimbah this morning...

The first one here is definitely a Comanche, an earlier -250 now she's emerged from her swim. There's numbers on the side of her new-found friend so I still can't pick what it is, but it looks a bit like a KR2 or Morgan Sierra.

The float-thingy is back on her feet, but the one in the mid-ground looks to be in a bad way...

EDIT: Turns out these images in my above post will always be the current images from the weather-cam, so in days to come, they may well show bright sunny sky with nothing but green grass to be seen, hence why they are now the same as the photos in this post....The ones attached to this post were saved to my local drive and uploaded from there, so they will stay the same.

Edited February 28, 2022 by KRviator

[red750]

45 minutes ago, KRviator said:

but it looks a bit like a KR2 or Morgan Sierra.

Nose looks too short for a Morgan.

[skippydiesel]

Its history(sad)  for the aircraft above - what of the airfields, in the path of this deluge,  further south? Isn't Grafton pretty low  & close to the river?

[SGM]

28 minutes ago, red750 said:

Nose looks too short for a Morgan.

Maybe Brumby 600 aka J544 (ok ok I looked up the rego)

[KRviator]

Just now, skippydiesel said:

Its history(sad)  for the aircraft above - what of the airfields, in the path of this deluge,  further south? Isn't Grafton pretty low  & close to the river?

South Grafton I think is, they're only 1000m from the river, but I had a look at the NSW Gov't SIXMaps page just now and it looks to be protected by a levee bank along the river - but if water gets through or around that, all bets are off I'd imagine!

The latest BOM plot for the Clarance River at Grafton shows it to have just peaked at around 7.8m - which is 3.4m above the major flood level. It's now trending downwards slowly, but that may well rise further if they get more rain in the catchment.

[skippydiesel]

1 hour ago, KRviator said:

South Grafton I think is, they're only 1000m from the river, but I had a look at the NSW Gov't SIXMaps page just now and it looks to be protected by a levee bank along the river - but if water gets through or around that, all bets are off I'd imagine!

The latest BOM plot for the Clarance River at Grafton shows it to have just peaked at around 7.8m - which is 3.4m above the major flood level. It's now trending downwards slowly, but that may well rise further if they get more rain in the catchment.

There are two Grafton airfields - I get confused (hopefully not when landing) There is the small one that's almost in town and the bigger  RPT one some distance away. Its the small (in town) one, that I visited years ago & remember as being close to the river.

[spacesailor]

South Grafton airfield.

Tony Hayes had a Hummel Bird there  ( end hanger l believe ).

They ( Hummels) should only need a couple of large inner tubes, under their wings, to float above water.

spacesailor

[PapaFox]

Kgwilson posted this in the other similar thread

https://www.recreationalflying.com/topic/38164-murwillumbah-airfield-flood-today/?do=findComment&comment=524694&_rid=29

[RossK]

4 hours ago, SGM said:

Maybe Brumby 600 aka J544 (ok ok I looked up the rego)

Weren't you parked next to it not too long ago? 😬