Air Safety

good and we had to scrub the idea before we even got started. But this particular Saturday it looked as though it would be on.

I booked the Cessna 172 again and my mate and his lady came down from Newcastle after work on the Friday night so we’d be all set for an early start.

You can imagine how I felt at six o’clock next morning when I rang Bankstown and got another unfavourable weather report! From the cloud forecast and the promise of fog on the ranges, it looked as though we’d have to cancel again. I didn’t want to do that – I’d feel too much of a fool telling them it was off again – especially after they’d taken the trouble to come down for the second time.

As the observations from which the early forecast had been compiled were probably several hours old, I reasoned that the situation might look better a bit later. I wouldn’t do anything until we all got out to the aerodrome, I decided. Hopefully, by then there’d be some improvement.

I’d arranged to be out at the strip by half past seven. That way I’d have time to preflight the Cessna properly and ring through my flight plan without the distraction of my passengers breathing down my neck. They would come out later, about eight, when I had everything set to go.

I did the preflight and rang Bankstown Briefing again for the latest area forecast. On the coast it indicated three octas of cumulus at 2,500 feet with another three of stretch at 3,000, but inland there would be five octas at 5,000 feet. And the fog on the ranges was expected to lift between 10 o’clock and midday. All in all, if we waited a bit, the weather mightn’t be so bad as to make the trip impossible.

So I put in a flight plan for Cooma via Braidwood, with an ETD of 2300 (0900 local time). My passengers had arrived when I got off the phone and I told them our start was postponed an hour.

Wandering back to the aircraft, I noticed the sky overhead and to the east and south it was almost completely overcast. But the base seemed reasonable- between 3,000 and 4,000 feet- and just inland to the west there was a big hole with blue sky showing through it.

While I was waiting, one of the instructors asked me where I was off to, and I told him what we’d planned. He said it might be a bit doubtful, but there’d certainly be no harm in having a look. He asked if I knew how to use the ADF and when I told him I did, he suggested it might be an idea to climb up through the hole to have a look at conditions from there. But he added that I shouldn’t hesitate to turn back if I didn’t like the look of the weather.

My passengers were naturally full of excitement at the prospect of the trip. They carried the food from the car and we loaded it into the rear locker and spent the time making sure everything was ready. Finally, at a quarter to nine, we boarded the aircraft, I started the engine and we taxied out with everyone in high spirits. I still hadn’t said anything about the possibility of having to come back. With a bit of luck now I wouldn’t have to!

We were airborne right on time and headed towards the big hole in the cloud cover. Calling Sydney Flight Service, I reported departing Wollongong at 2303 and that we were climbing to 4,000. We went on climbing up into the hole, circling as we went. Tenminutes later we wereat 6,000 feet, just above the tops of the stretch, and I set course for Cooma on a heading of 200 degrees magnetic.

Because we were so close to the cloud tops, I decided it would be better to go higher and called Sydney to say that we were climbing to 8,000 (to remain quadrantal) over eight octas of cloud. I added that if we couldn’t get a fix after 30 minutes, we would return to Wollongong.

Flying a back bearing on the Wollongong NDB, we continued above the cloud deck for the next fifteen minutes. It wasn’t looking promising – in every direction the cloud layer stretched unbroken to the horizon. At 2325 hours I was about to pick up the microphone to tell Flight Service we were turning back when Sydney called us to say that a Cherokee, VFR from Canberra to Moruya, had reported three octas of cloud at 5,500 feet (I found out later I had misunderstood this transmission – the reported cloud was eight octas. It was the most expensive mistake I ever made).

With this apparently more encouraging information, and knowing our lowest safe altitude was 4,200 feet, I rashly decided to drop down below the cloud. Applying full carburetter heat and throttling back slightly, I trimmed the Cessna into a 500 feet per minute descent and dipped into the cloud tops. All went well, but at 5,500 feet the cloud was as thick as ever and I decided to continue the descent to our lowest safe. At 4,200 feet we were still in cloud, so I levelled out, put on cruising power again, and checked with the ADF that we were still on track.

Realising there was no way we could go on in these conditions, I worked out a return heading for Wollongong and banked into a rate one turn to the right. Straightening up on the reciprocal heading I put on full power and eased the aircraft into a 70 knot climb, intending to go back on top. Then I called Sydney again, reported we were returning, and that our ETA was 0015.

I think we had passed through 5,000 feet and I was studying at the Visual En route chart when things began to go horribly wrong.

First of all I noticed that the vertical speed indicator was showing a descent of 300 feet per minute. This was odd, because we had been climbing at 70 knots and everything else seemed right. I put on just a little back pressure, just a gentle movement of the control column, but the VSI stayed the same. The airspeed indicator didn’t move either – it stayed on 70 knots so I pulled

back just a little more. ‘

The VSI still didn’t move, so I looked across to the left to check the ASI again. As I did so, something caught my eye over on the light. It was the VSI- now showing maximum deflection! I can t remember which way, but the needle was hard up against the stop. Then I felt in my stomach that we were going up, so I pushed hard on the control column but there was no reaction. The aircraft suddenly seemed to be in a stall – the controls became sloppy and everything went quiet.

I pulled back on the control column and the elevators took effect- it felt as if we weregoing over in aloop. As we came out of it, the instruments were all fluctuating wildly, the VSI more than all the rest. The ASI was off the scale- this time its needle hard up against the stop. Desperately I reduced power and put on carburet _ ter heat. The gros had toppled, but somehow I think I got the aircraft level again, more by sensation than by instruments, because they had all gone haywire.

Things seemed to be settling down, so I seized the moment to turn and yell at my girlfriend that whatever she did, she was to watch the VSI and let me know what it was doing. (I’ve no idea what my other two passengers were thinking or doing at this stage – I was just too frantically occupied).

After a little while the turn and bank indicator showed everything was right again- the needle and ball were both back in the middle- so I put on full power, took the carburetter heat off and began to climb again at 70 knots. Then I got this climb sensation aga!n. The air speed fell off and we seemed to go into a loop again. Everything fell all over the cabin- I felt it was hopeless. I pulled back on the control column as we came out of the ‘loop’- and suddenly I caught sight of trees through the mist directly ahead of us! We skimmed over the tops of the trees as the aircraft pulled out of dive and I levelled out, not far above them. Then the ground became lost in the cloud again as we crossed the edge of a valley. I began to climb once more- it was the only thing to do- and I tried using the airspeed indicator. But we must have gone into yet another ‘loop’, for we again dived out of the cloud steeply nosedown, levelling out this time only metres above the treetops. I decided to try and fly visually, but the cloud was almost on the trees. Suddenly a low hill materialised out of the cloud directly in front of us- I had to jerk the wheel hard back to avoid it. As we zoomed over it, the propeller caught the top of a tree. Branches and leaves went everywhere- the windscreen suddenly seemed full of flying greenery- then we were in cloud again.

I pushed the control column hard forward and managed to regain sight of the trees, but it was drizzling and extremely difficult to see which way we were going at all. I throttled back a bit and slowed the aircraft down, then put down 10 degrees of flap and tried to fly at 60 knots.

At this stage I remember the back window was broken – it had been caused by the picketing stakes being thrown about in the luggage compartment and crashing through the window. By now I was sweating with fear, so I turned the cold air vent full on and tried to take hold of myself. Thinking about the tree we had just hit, I realised that to continue like this was absolute madness- it would happen again. So I applied full power, raised the flaps and began once more to try and climb.

This time I got the aircraft settled into quite a reasonable climb for, I think, somewhere around four minutes. The wings were level according to the turn and bank indicator, though the airspeed was fluctuating a bit, and above us now I could just see the sun shining through the clouds. During the climb there had been some gentle turbulence, but now I noticed the VSI was jumping madly. The altimeter was still showing a climb, but its movements had become irregular too- it would move about 100 feet, then pause for a while; then it would move another 100 feet and pause again.

. The next thing I remember was that we seemed to be in a spiral dive. And then I saw the ground- heavily timbered and rocky- and very close! We shot up into the cloud again briefly and, as we came out, I saw we were over a tableland. Over to the right I could see something like a cliff edge, with the cloud falling over it. I decided then and there that I would just have to put the aircraft down somewhere- or we would all be killed.

I thought if I turned left, we might be turning into higher ground because I couldn’t see in that direction very well – the visibility was very, very poor. I decided that if I went right and then turned through 180 degrees and started letting down, we might be lucky enough to get away with it.

So I reset the directional gyro and began a fairly gentle turn- I think it steepened to about 60 degrees at one stage, but we managed to get around. Then I reduced power and tried to put the aircraft In a gentle descent- the VSI was settling down gradually but still fluctuating. We were in cloud or mist for about a minute or so more, but I continued to slow the aircraft down and when the trees became visible beneath us again, I turned everything off- ignition, fuel, and master switch.

Then I looked ahead across the treetops and just kept easing the control column back and back and back as though I were ‘feeling’ the aircraft on to the ground. I knew I was clutching at a straw, but it was our last chance.

The aircraft was very nose-up, then the tail scraped the treetops. I remember looking down at the ground at that moment, about 80 feet below us, and thinking it was the end. I don’t remember much after that until I came to with the aircraft lying wrecked on its starboard side amongst the rainforest undergrowth on the valley floor. I realised then that I must have banged my eye, probably on the control column, as we hit. Apar t from being drenched with fuel from the severed port wing- and a few cuts and bruises – my passengers seemed all right. None of them had even been knocked unconscious.

We clambered out of the wreckage. Nobody said much – I think we were all too dazed by what had happened- and hardly able to believe we had all survived almost unscathed. The terror we had experienced in the air had been thrust aside by the vast sense of relief that we were safe-even though we hadn’t the foggiest idea where we were, or how or when we would be rescued. But I did have the presence of mind to tell my passengers very firmly that we must all stay with the aircraft until we were rescued.

That took until the next day.

We spent a pretty miserable night – it rained heavily and we were cold and wet – though we did manage to get a fire going. In the morning we stoked it up to make as much smoke as possible and at about 10 o’clock a searching Cessna 172 flew over. He must have seen the smoke because he began circling almost at once. Having ‘evidently spotted the wreckage, he was joined after a bit by a Cessna 310. The C172 then flew off, but the C310 stayed overhead. We tried waving to indicate we were all right, but it was probably hard for him to see us down amongst the undergrowth.

After about an hour we heard the sound of helicopters and presently two big Navy choppers appeared overhead. One of them hovered directly over us, just above the trees. We saw its side door was open and then they were winching a man down.

We went to meet him as he reached the ground. He was wearing Navy rescue gear and told us he was a Navy surgeon and then asked if were there any survivors. He could hardly believe it when we told him we were the survivors -he thought we must be bush walkers who had come across the wreckage after the Cessna crashed!

They winched us up one by one into the helicopters and flew us back to the Naval Air Station at Nowra where their hospital treated us very well. We then learned where we had crashed – in a steep sided and inaccessible gorge of the Great Dividing Range, about 10 miles south east of Moss Vale.

There was no way the aircraft could be salvaged of course, and as far as I know the wreckage is still where we put it. In fact the air safety investigator who was winched in to look at it said it was extremely difficult even to examine the wreckage properly. But he did work out what happened. The first impact with the treetops, at relatively low speed, had banked us sharply to the right. Striking other trees with the wings and fuselage, the aircraft had then slipped sideways down through the trees until the main impact with the ground was taken on the starboard wing. This tore off both wings and badly buckled the rear fuselage, but the cabin section somehow remained fairly intact – and that’s why I can tell this story!

Instrument flying? Well, I thought I could do it- in fact, before all this happened I had no fears about flying in cloud. That’s why when the cloud cover threatened to mess up our day, I had no hesitation about pressing on. In my supreme ignorance, I just wanted to do everything possible to make the trip a success.

I’ve never done it again. I don’t need to tell you that finding yourself in cloud on your own for the first time ‘for real’ is a very different story to a bit of time under the hood with an instructor beside you!