Tales

When the aircraft commenced its descent into Adelaide, our friend was awakened by a Flight Attendant with a request to fasten his seat belt. This he did then promptly fell asleep again. When he awoke, his mind still befuddled, he was puzzled to see the cabin crew serving refreshments and immediately queried the aforementioned FA regarding their intended arrival time in Adelaide.

The poor girl nearly dropped her coffee pot as the true situation dawned on her because at that time the aircraft was an hour out of Adelaide en route for Perth! It would appear that the cabin crew failed to properly cross check the passenger list prior to departing Adelaide, opting for a head count only, and because one passenger had missed the flight for the Adelaide/Perth leg, the numbers checked out OK.

What followed was a series of frantic radio messages from the aircraft to Perth, and on arrival there, our friend was entertained by a very apologetic airport manager of the nameless airline. The wayward traveller even managed to maintain a sense of humour however with a phone call to his boss in Adelaide (around 2.00am Adelaide time) asking if there was any company business he could attend to whilst he was in Perth!

Arrangements were quickly completed to book him on the first available flight out of Perth and this happened to be the ‘Red Eye Special’ departing around 1.00am. Unfortunately, this flight proceeded directly from Perth to Melbourne, and as the summer sun rose in the morning our friend was overflying his Adelaide home at 30,000 plus feet!

Back in Melbourne again and somewhat worse for wear, he was directed onto the next flight to Adelaide finally arriving home around 10.30am. In all, his journey took some 15 hours to complete compared to the normal Melbourne/Adelaide flight time of around one hour. Total distance travelled – approximately 6300km! Needless to say, embarkation procedures of the particular airline were smartened up after that little episode! (George Grotto)

Watered Down

In the days when the active Citizen Air Force squadrons were still flying Wirraways and Mustangs a person from each trade (they were called musterings then) was required for tarmac duty. Apart from providing first aid to any problems within their particular field of expertise, the tarmac crew was responsible for refuelling and despatching aircraft on training flights. This meant that they were not necessarily expert at some of the ancillary functions that fell upon them. Included in this was the refilling of the fuel tankers.

At that time at Pearce, fuel was stored in underground tanks, some of which were located near the end of one of the runways. Shortly after refilling a tanker with 91 octane a Wirraway was in turn being refilled. The tanker driver was idly gazing at the airman wielding the nozzle end of the hose and noticed that he allowed a small spillage due to drifting away from the filling hole on the port wing.

He became more than interested when he realised that the material that had fallen to the ground had not spread in the manner that he would have expected but was sitting in nice little globules! To cut a long story short, of the 4000 litres of liquid in the tanker some 1000 were 91 octane, the rest was water! Needless to say, refuelling procedures were hastily revised and the underground storage came in for some close inspection. (I Anderson, Albany)

Early Morning Start

In the Early Days, before scheduled airline flights, air travel to the Ok Tedi mine site in deepest Papua New Guinea was by company charter and due to the area flown into, most departures were at some ungodly hour just as first light filtered across Jacksons Field.

The aircraft was usually a Bandeirante, chartered from Talair with seating for approx 15, plus freight and luggage. Considering the early morning start and the night before being the last big night in town before the pleasures of a mine canteen, most were a little seedy to say the least!

It soon became apparent that the 15 seat Bandeirante could not accommodate the milling 25 to 30 “not so eager” passengers and soon a nervous desk clerk was having a problem explaining that seat allocation would be given later (always a bad omen in PNG) and the aircraft may not leave on time.

Those who had passed this way before calmly sat back and awaited the local method of clearing grossly over booked aircraft. Without fail, the dispatch officer would announce due to an ‘unspecified problem’ the aircraft could be delayed for an hour or more. After moans and complaints from those with delicate heads, it was suggested that those who wished should decamp to the nearby hotel for breakfast.

As soon as the last traveller had moved out of earshot there was a flurry with the issuing of boarding passes to those remaining, followed by the prompt announcement that the company charter flight to Kiunga was about to leave and all should now board the aircraft. An hour later the first of the revived passengers arrived back from the pub to be told in a very serious manner that the aircraft had left and that they should have remained close to the office for any announcement. Needless to say the dispatch officer was nowhere to be found! A good way of sorting out an over booked aircraft with a minimum of fuss and stress! (Eric Simmons)