The Stinson Saga

The Stinsons were the last word in airline flying.

Cutting timetables almost in half, they had enhanced their company’s reputation for reliability on the Sydney- Brisbane route. Along the coast between the two cities, the passage of the dynamic, dark blue Stinsons, and the whine of their engines, had become familiar daily events.

VH-UHH City of Brisbane was scheduled for the early afternoon flight to Sydney via Lismore. The forecast for high winds, cloud on the ranges and widespread rain,gave Captain Rex Boyden little concern. Having flown from Sydney that morning, he knew what to expect. His main worry was the landing at Lismore, where four additional passengers were to join the flight, as the tops of its surrounding hills were in cloud.

A few minutes after 1pm, VH-UHH was climbing steadily into the strong southerly wind towards the MacPherson Ranges on the NSW border. It was due at Lismore just before 2pm.

But VH-UHH carried no radio, and when nothing was heard of it, the airline’s agent there concluded it had simply continued to Sydney because of the weather.

But in Sydney late that afternoon, there was wonder, then concern, and finally anxiety. At first it was hoped VH-UHH had been forced to land somewhere there was no telephone. But as this optimism faded with approaching darkness, fears intensified – VH-UHH was missing. At first light, search aircraft, hampered by high winds and low cloud, began working over the route, from both Brisbane and Sydney.

As the days dragged on and weather improved, it became one of the most intensive air searches in Australia’s history – yet without uncovering a single clue to the missing airliner’s fate. A Sydney newspaper spoke for many: “Is it another Southern Cloud?” it asked. A week after it began, the official search was abandoned.

But deep in the MacPherson Ranges lived a bushman who thought differently.

The day the Stinson disappeared, the mountain weather, particularly the wind, had been the worst for years. But while farmers on the northern side of the range had seen the aircraft tracking as usual in the direction of Lismore, intending passengers there had waited in vain for the Stinson to arrive. To Bernard O’Reilly, there was an answer – and that answer was lying somewhere in the MacPherson Ranges.

The story of how he single-handedly found the wreckage amid almost impenetrable rain forest, then led a rescue party back to save the surviving but starving passengers, John Proud and Joseph Binstead, has passed into folk lore. The third survivor, James Westray, attempting to walk out of the ranges, died after falling down a cliff.

O’Reilly’s achievement, his emotions on finding the two pitiful survivors, their dramatic rescue, and his almost incredible endurance, is told in his book, Green Mountains, first published in 1940, and reprinted in 1983.

From Proud’s and Binstead’s evidence, from weather reports, and from farmers who saw the Stinson shortly before it reached the ranges, the cause of the accident finally became clear.

Despite conditions in the Lismore area, CaptainBoyden had set course as usual for the NSW town.

Though avoiding heavy rain battering the coast, this took the aircraft directly across the heavily forested MacPherson Ranges which rise to almost 4000ft.

A farmer, only eight kilometres from the crash site, noticed that the Stinson was lower than usual, but flying right in the base of the cloud. Further to his south, the strong southerly was capping the higher peaks with cloud.

The two surviving passengers said that after they passed over small farms near the foot of the ranges, the mountains rose steeply, decreasing the aircraft’s height above the ground. It was raining and their view was soon obscured by cloud.

Turbulence intensified, the noise of the engines increased, and they seemed to be climbing. Then the cloud parted and they caught sight of tree tops close below.

Concerned, they were reassured by the relaxed look of the copilot, whom they could see through a window in the flightdeck door.

But within seconds the trees were only feet below the wings, the windows on the other side of the cabin were filled by a mountainside just off the starboard wing, and the copilot’s expression had changed to one of alarm.

The Stinson lurched, and a splintering crash followed as it rode over the top of a large tree. There was a second impact, and they plunged into the dense jungle canopy, slicing off a heavy branch. Falling through the trees, the Stinson finally crashed nose-down against a massive tree trunk in a third, more violent impact.

Proud, sitting in the front seat on the port side, recovered first. The aircraft was on fire, the cabin door blocked by dense smoke, but behind him a window had sprung from its mounting.

He wrenched it away and, despite a broken leg, climbed out on to the wing. Binstead, seated in the third row, had also regained consciousness, and with Proud’s help, squeezed through the same opening.

James Westray, the third survivor of the crash, followed quickly, sustaining burns – the cabin had become a mass of flame.

The pilots and the remaining passengers were incinerated.

O’Reilly and some of his mountain neighbours later described the southerly gale on the day of the accident as the wildest weather for years.

The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting sea damage, spoke of “the cyclone which raged off the coast”, while passengers aboard a P&O liner suffered injuries in weather the captain said was “the worst he could remember”.

The ridge where the Stinson crashed is the southernmost of four spurs jutting westwards from the main range. The northern spurs would have been sheltered to some degree, but the southernmost spur, forming a near-vertical wall of more than 3000ft, was exposed to the full force of the wind. This would have produced extremely powerful downdraughts on its lee side.

Here, the base of the cloud lay close to the ridge top, and there was but a small clearance through which the aircraft had to squeeze if it were to remain visual for its descent into Lismore. Approaching the ridge, the Stinson flew directly into the invisible waterfall of air and was carried below the summit into the trees. Captain Boyden, though expecting strong headwinds, probably had no idea of the strength of the down-draught in the lee of the ridge.

The loss of the Stinson created a public furore, bringing out the fact that, more than six years after the disappearance of the Southern Cloud, “wireless” was still not required on airline aircraft.

A fortnight later, the Minister responsible for Civil Aviation announced that equipment had been ordered for “aeronautical wireless stations” at Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston and Hobart. The carriage of radio in all airline aircraft would be enforced. There was also a pressing need for some form of radio navigation for the airlines, the Minister expecting “it would be decided to install the system at Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne”.

The Stinson accident, with all its ramifications, was to prove a significant milestone in the development of the airways system that today enables Australia’s airlines to operate safely in all weathers.