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The demonstration flight will take off from HARS Aviation Museum at Shellharbour Airport at 10:30am on Friday. The plane, dubbed the largest “close replica” aircraft in the world, has been restored by HARS over more than 12 years since the society purchased it in 2010.
VH-FEY, piloted by Michelle Yeates, whose LinkedIn profile lists her as working for Rottnest Air Taxi, was on its way from Carnarvon to Jandakot via Geraldton when it began to lose engine power. Yeates, seeing that people were on the nearby Leighton Beach, opted to ditch in the ocean.
Registered N140CG, Tanker 133 – nicknamed Froy – departed California on 24 November, touching down at Richmond, NSW, shortly before 4:30pm on Monday ready for duty with the NSW Rural Fire Service. It is one of five Hercules planes purchased from the Norwegian Air Force in 2019.
The aircraft, VH-DZJ (pictured), collided with another S-211 in mid-air approximately 12km west of Mount Martha in southeast Melbourne and went down, while the other aircraft, VH-DQJ, returned safely to Essendon. Pilot Stephen Gale and cameraman James Rose are presumed dead.
The pilot is believed to have lost control of the GlaStar light aircraft, registered VH-BAQ, when a sudden gust of wind hit as he came in to land on a grass airstrip at Cootharaba on Sunday.
The plane, registered VH-VPY, was en route to Pago Pago in American Samoa when it lost an engine and was forced to come down in the ocean about 35 nautical miles off the coast of Queensland. A nearby RFDS aircraft was able to provide accurate coordinates to emergency services.
