In the wake of Oswald

Damage to Kowanyama airport was so extensive it reportedly could be out of operation or up to 15 months, with a daily connection to Cairns maintained only by a helicopter via Pompuraaw.

Rockhampton’s (yet to be flood-proofed) airport was another festering sore “closed” due to flooding, but 1,520 metres of runway 15/33 plus a 90m-wide flight strip was officially promulgated for daylight operations with landings on runway 15 only. Night operations were restored on February 4 with jet operations the following day, albeit still with many limitations.

However, the flooding that hit Bundaberg saw one of the biggest air support operations ever mounted. The total evacuation of Bundaberg hospital was the fourth such major effort of recent years.

On the night of January 28, Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Beech King Airs and a medevac Learjet transported 10 high-care patients to Brisbane. The RFDS Queensland division fleet, now also including PC-12s and a Cessna Caravan, last year performed nearly 10,000 inter-hospital transfers in Queensland. The CareFlight Learjets perform similar long-range transfers and retrievals.

The following day two RAAF C-130Js uplifted 97 patients on three sorties to six Brisbane hospitals. RFDS and CareFlight lifted many others.

The C-130J, C-17 (and one hopes C-27) can be rapidly reconfigured for any combination of intensive care cases to walking wounded in the field, typically accommodated down each side facing inward, and several tiers of stretchers along the centreline.

Coinciding with the aeromedical evacuations, the forced evacuation of North Bundaberg was undertaken by approximately 20 helicopters after the river closed the sole bridge. Types from purpose-fitted Army Black Hawks and emergency services and light helicopters airlifted around 1,500 people. Of these the Black Hawks lifted around 750.

A de facto Restricted Area was established across a 3nm radius up to 3,000ft over North Bundaberg to allow helicopters unrestricted operations. Other flights from small charters to normal airport traffic were told firmly by air traffic control to “keep out”.

Bundaberg recently upgraded its airport to regional jet level with the lure of the short-used E170 and even dreams of international flights driving the development, which many local ratepayers, thousands of whom were now flood victims, contested. Following the upgrade Sunstate’s Dash 8s remained the sole users – until the flood.

On January 29 a C-17 airlifted in a massive, desperately-needed payload, followed by the Prime Minister’s BBJ. The jets had arrived. On January 30 and 31 an Alaskan civil Lockheed L-382, a rare civil version of the original stretched C-130, joined in. The Lyndon Air aircraft are usually seen monthly making support flights from Alaska to its Papua New Guinea mine charter base. The L-382 can carry 22 tonnes of payload, use the same strips as the C-130 and reverse itself into tight parking spots. In its flood relief role the aircraft did three return Bundaberg trips, its capacity being identical to the RAAF C-130J proving very useful. Bundaberg finally got its international service, but not how it expected – or wanted to.

The same day the Army deployed a large multi-purpose recovery convoy from Brisbane up the still partly-closed highway. Sadly, however, this was the first major evacuation the ultra-useful RAN Sea Kings did not attend, having been retired in December 2011.

Two lingering problems demand answers – fast. Rockhampton is a strategically essential air hub and base for military operations. Upgraded Gladstone can take C-130s and their like, but the floods that hit Rockhampton airport also took out the Gladstone road link, negating using Gladstone. Three key users of Rockhampton – the RAAF, Singapore Defence Forces and USAF – use widebody aircraft (including civil widebodies) to support the nearby Shoalwater Bay training facility.

Unlike the squabble over airlines paying for upgrades such as Brisbane’s new runway and the mythical second Sydney airport – in advance, Rockhampton needs to be fixed now, with all present users including military and disaster agencies chipping in.

And as with every flood, emergency locator beacons began going off around Bundaberg, many in abandoned unoccupied boats including some parked in yards. These tie up high-value emergency services helicopters and can mask a real activation.

As the flood support continued, an ultralight went missing north-west of Caboolture. Rescue 471, the Cairns-based search and rescue Dornier, attempted a VHF direction finder search from 25,000ft and could have been severely compromised by these errant beacons. Owners of such beacons, not activated genuinely, should be heavily fined and lose their boat licences.

It behoves all of us to try and stop the never-ending budget cuts and dubious trade-offs in defence air asset procurements, including the withdrawal of the C-130Hs and gifting four to Indonesia, scrubbing four C-130Js to get two more badly-needed C-17s and even questions over the future “arrangements” of some of our EMS machines – among the world’s best. These assets also have a unique secondary capability and capacity nothing else can do.

After the next cyclone they could again be instantly needed.

An historical perspective

Bundaberg is proving to be a rescue and recovery effort of world note, but earlier Queensland air evacuations should not be forgotten.

Following cyclone Yasi in 2011, the then new C-17 had its baptism of fire when the immediate evacuation of all Cairns hospitals to Brisbane was mounted, along with RFDS, CareFlight, Queensland government police and air wing fleets,

Alliance, Jetstar and Qantas evacuated 320 patients – 109 with special needs – plus medical escorts, carers and relatives to six Brisbane hospitals in the nation’s biggest aeromedical evacuation.

In 1990 severe flooding saw much of the population of Charleville evacuated to a tent city on the airport and required immediate evacuation of the hospital to Brisbane. Fuel was absolutely critical being reserved for RFDS King Airs, essential F27 scheduled services and in particular the then new Black Hawks on their first such operation. In extreme heat and with constantly hoisting, a Black Hawk burns about the same amount as the F27 or Dash 8-200.

To conserve fuel, a long-range-tanked East West Airlines F28-4000 from Tamworth was tasked to operate Tamworth-Charleville-Brisbane to move the walking wounded, its crew augmented by NSW aeromedical sisters. At the time East West operated the NSW aeromedical service contract and previously had uniquely adapted the last three seats and overhead fittings on its DC3s to enable a stretcher, nurse and assorted overhead-mounted medical equipment to be fitted. Flight attendants on the Charleville F28 flights were “stretcher” endorsed. No other civil type could do that job without refuelling. An aeromedical-configured C-130 operated Brisbane- Charleville airlifting all higher care patients, also without refuelling.

During the same floods it became necessary to urgently evacuate Cunamulla hospital to Brisbane. RFDS lifted high-care patients, but a hastily-tasked Ansett 737-300 lifted the remaining patients, it being the last aircraft out as the rapidly rising floodwaters lapped the runway edges.

There arise tasks of extreme urgency and specific needs that only the aeroplane can do, ranging from tiny Robinson helicopters to the Qantas 747-200 that evacuated 673 people (plus hidden pet animals and birds) from Darwin post Tracy in what remains a record for the number of people carried by a 747.

That airlift of more than 10,000 people remains Australia’s biggest yet.

Queensland, with its vast geographic expanse and widely dispersed population, is blessed with two sources of high-capacity aircraft – that of the airlines themselves and those of the ever-growing fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) operators of aircraft such as Dash 8s, Fokker 50s and Fokker 70s and 100s that can be rapidly made available. Like Alliance Fokker 100s at Cairns, a Brisbane Skytrans Dash 8 was made rapidly available to evacuate the Saint George nursing home to Brisbane.