Air Safety An Unforgettable Experience

At first the weather was much as it had been that morning, and we flew through frequent patches of fairly light rain. The cloud was still well above us and visibility wasn’t too bad, except when we occasionally encountered heavier rain showers. Just on half past five, I picked out what looked like the town of Temora a little to the south of our course and it seemed to me that we weren’t doing too well — it was getting late and there was still a long way to go. I don’t know if the pilot saw Temora or not, but about 20 minutes later, when he said we were now abeam Cootamundra (though it was too far away to the south for us to see in the poor visibility) and nearly half way to Wollongong, he worked out our ground speed with his calculator and found we were doing only 85 knots (158km/h). Because of this, our flight was already falling behind schedule.

Some 20 minutes later again, as we were getting into that expanse of hilly country, heavily timbered in places, that lies to the west of the Great Dividing Range itself, patches of white cloud began to appear below us. This was in addition to the dark rain clouds and the complete grey overcast that had been obscuring the sky above us since we took off. Only scattered wisps at first, then small patches, then expanses of increasing size that intermittently blotted out some of our view of the ground, the lower level cloud progressively thickened as we continued eastwards towards the ranges. After this, we found ourselves flying between layers of cloud, with only occasional breaks below us through which we could catch sight of the ground. Through one of these breaks the pilot identified the town of Boorowa, and after again calculating our ground speed, he announced that we would not reach Wollongong now until after 7.20pm. By this time the rain had become constant — and it was gradually getting heavier. Also, as we approached the higher country of the Dividing Range, the layer of stratus cloud below us began to develop into great lumps of cumulus cloud rising on either side of us.

Before long, some of the build-ups were reaching up to the cloud above us, and it was becoming impossible to continue our course eastwards and still keep clear of cloud. Just before a quarter to seven we sighted Crookwell through a break in the cloud almost directly below us. In the heavily overcast conditions, the daylight was beginning to fade a little now, and I could see that the street lights were already on. A few minutes later the pilot told us we were now abeam Goulburn and at this stage we flew into solid grey cloud. After this we could see nothing outside the aircraft. It was bumpy in the cloud and there were times when the rain became really heavy, sharp gusts of it drumming so furiously on the windscreen that it even seemed to drown out the sound of the engine. But these conditions didn’t last much more than a few seconds at a time and it wasn’t what could be called uncomfortable. In fact, isolated as we were from the outside world by the cloud and the rain and the approaching darkness, there was even something of a snug feeling inside the warm cabin.

Apart from only occasional breaks through which we could see the ground, we continued in thick cloud for the best part of the next 20 minutes. Then suddenly we emerged into a wide clear break which for a short time gave us a clear view of the ground below. There, almost directly in front of us, were the lights of Mittagong and Bowral, with Moss Vale just a little to the south on our starboard side. The pilot also picked out the flashing red aeronautical beacon on top of Mt Gibraltar near Bowral, and used this position to make another check on our speed. It showed that our progress was falling even further behind his original estimate and he had to amend our arrival time over Albion Park aerodrome to half past seven, a good five minutes after sunset. By that time in this weather, it would be almost dark on the ground.

Soon after the pilot fixed our position over Mt Gibraltar, we flew into cloud again. The daylight was fading fast now, but through another smaller break in the cloud we got another brief view of the ground close to Robertson, almost on the edge of the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range near the Macquarie Pass. We were now less than 10 minutes flying time from Albion Park, but because of the poor visibility, the pilot now tried to tune the aircraft’s radio compass to the Albion Park beacon. Somewhat to his consternation, he couldn’t seem to find the signal on the dial, despite several attempts. Finally he gave up and settled for tuning the radio compass into 2WL instead. 2WL is a Wollongong commercial broadcasting station and its transmitter is about nine kilometres northeast of the aerodrome on the eastern shore of Lake Illawarra, just south of Port Kembla.

At this stage, because we had crossed the eastern edge of the Dividing Range escarpment and were now over the coastal plain, the pilot took us down steeply, looking hard for landmarks in the rapidly fading daylight that could help us find the way to the aerodrome at Albion Park. Through another break in the cloud we sighted the main road leading to the foot of the Macquarie Pass, but because of heavy rain and cloud in the direction of Albion Park, the pilot turned to the southeast towards Kiama and Berry. When we were over the coast somewhere between these towns, we descended again, this time to 1000 feet, then continued to search for a way to the aerodrome. The visibility at this stage of the flight was nil and darkness had now fallen. After about 20 minutes the pilot told us we were now right over Albion Park. We certainly couldn’t see it, because we were in thick cloud, but he throttled back the engine to descend further and asked us to look for lights. How he was going to land at Albion Park in the dark, he didn’t say.

As we circled lower we did sight occasional single white lights that were probably street lamps, but then the pilot said it would be inadvisable for us to go any lower. He then explained that, as we were now down to our 45 minutes of reserve fuel, we would probably have to go on to Sydney to land. Putting on power again, the pilot turned the Cessna towards the northeast to take us safely out over the coast again and away from the mountains to the west, and began to climb once more. It was now after 8 o’clock and, as soon as we were at a safe height, the pilot radioed Sydney to ask for radar directions to Sydney Airport. He explained that we were off the coast near Wollongong, that we were flying in cloud, rain and darkness, and that we had only 45 minutes of fuel left.

Despite our predicament, the Sydney radio operator sounded very calm and reassuring. But he told us that the weather there wasn’t good either, with low cloud, driving rain, and a 15 to 25 knot southerly wind. He then asked the pilot to switch over to the Sydney radar frequency for our approach. When our pilot had complied, the radar operator told us to climb to 5000 feet. Our Cessna was then identified on radar and told to remain at this altitude until we were closer to Sydney, when we would be directed to descend east of the coast between Cronulla and the Botany Bay heads. With the strong southerly wind now on our tail, it didn’t take long. Only a few minutes later the radar operator called again to tell us we were now 25nm (46km) from the airport, and that we would be vectored onto a final approach path for Runway 34. But because the wind was right behind us in this direction, we would have to turn right after we had broken out of cloud and had the runway lights in sight, and then make a normal left hand circuit to land in the opposite direction on Runway 16.

When we were only 4nm (7km) out according to the radar operator, now down to 1200 feet on the altimeter, we began to sight street lights below us through breaks in the cloud (I think they must have been the lights of Kurnell). Two minutes later we broke clear of the cloud altogether, and there in front of us were the welcome lights of the long Sydney runway. The pilot radioed that he had the runway in sight. The tension in the Cessna’s little cabin had been high for the past hour, but now at last we felt we could relax — the drama was all but over and we were almost safely back on terra firma — even if it was in Sydney and not Wollongong!

How wrong can you be! As we descended through 750 feet, air traffic control told the pilot to turn right on to the expected left hand circuit in order to land into wind in the opposite direction on Runway 16. As the pilot banked the aircraft into this turn, our engine, which hadn’t missed a beat in all the dirty weather we had flown through, suddenly failed completely — instead of its reassuring drone, there was just an appalling dead silence! Immediately the pilot picked up his microphone and said he would have to make a downwind landing straight ahead on Runway 34. To lose height more quickly, he then threw the Cessna into a series of S-turns, first banking steeply one way and then the other, while we passengers hung on, heart in mouth. But even we could now see this wasn’t going to work in the distance available — under the effect of the strong southerly, we were going to be carried over the end of the runway into the darkness beyond. (This was before Sydney’s Runway 16-34 was extended to its present length).

At this point in our S-turns, we were well off to the left of Runway 34 and the pilot now began a tight 180 degree turn to the right in a desperate attempt to line up in the opposite direction. But he’d left it too late, and there was neither the time nor the height to complete the turn — or even to switch on the landing lights — before we thumped down hard in pitch darkness somewhere on the other side of the runway. We’d barely had time to realise we were still in one piece when there was another great thump as we bounced through some unseen depression in the ground. But then we more or less ran straight, finally coming to a standstill on the grass, hardly able to believe it was all over.

In what seemed only moments, the airport emergency vehicles were all around us, and their lights showed we had run through a shallow spoon drain just after touching down on the grass on the eastern side of the runway. Even more dramatically, we had missed hitting a shed housing the auxiliary power unit for the runway glide slope transmitter by just a few metres! Despite all, the Cessna was quite undamaged — but there was not a drop of fuel left in its tanks! Up to this time we’d felt our pilot was doing a pretty good job in the face of very difficult circumstances — but now we began to have second thoughts.

We learnt afterwards that though he had a commercial licence and a flying instructor rating and had accumulated some 1200 hours flying time, he did not hold any class of instrument rating — nor was the aircraft approved for night or bad weather flying. Moreover, he had not even lodged any flight plan for the return leg of our charter flight from Griffith to Wollongong. When the trip ran into seriously deteriorating weather approaching Goulburn, there were still sizeable breaks in the cloud through which we could have diverted to another aerodrome, with plenty of daylight remaining. But obviously the pilot wasn’t at all fazed by the idea of continuing into cloud and rain, even with darkness approaching, and was relying on the aircraft’s radio compass and the Albion Park beacon for a safe approach and landing in the dark.

Unfortunately for him, but perhaps happily in the long run for everyone else concerned, the Albion Park radio beacon had failed that very afternoon, and a notice reporting it was unserviceable was actually issued while we were in the air. We also learnt later that because of ‘the dire peril’ (the investigating authority’s words!) in which the pilot had placed his passengers by his ‘blatant disregard for air safety’, he was considered unfit ‘to bear the responsibilities and to exercise the privileges of the holder of a commercial pilot licence.’ As the investigators themselves pointed out, the engine failure only seconds after we broke out of cloud approaching Sydney Airport, showed the extremely fine margin by which we averted total disaster!

Footnotes:

1. Track
2. ADF
3. Wollongong NDB
4. NOTAM