ABC NEWS ONLINE http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/daily/ BREAKING STORIES : QuickView Tuesday September 5, 2000 Posted: 0:41am AEDT Plane goes missing en route to WA Goldfields Australian Air Search and Rescue authorities are trying to track down a passenger plane after they lost contact with the pilot on Monday evening. The Beach 200 twin engine aircraft, which failed to land in the Western Australian Goldfields, is believed to flying around South Australia's north. The plane was due to land in Leonora, north of Kalgoorlie, about 7.30 pm WST. An Air Search and Rescue spokesperson says the plane is believed to be flying on autopilot. Eight passengers are on board the plane. Posted: 1:00am AEDT Missing plane located Australian Air Search and Rescue authorities have tracked down a passenger plane, after contact was lost with the pilot on Monday night. The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin engine aircraft, which failed to land in the Western Australian Goldfields, is 175 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. Two Air Search and Rescue aircraft are shadowing the plane, attempting to make contact with the pilot, although the plane is flying on autopilot. The plane was due to land in Leonora, north of Kalgoorlie, about 7.30 pm WST. Eight passengers are on board the plane. Posted: 2:21am AEDT Fears held for plane flying on autopilot Australian Air Search and Rescue authorities fear a plane, thought to be flying on autopilot in Queensland, may soon run out of fuel. The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin engine aircraft failed to land at a mine site near the Western Australian Goldfields town of Leonora last night. The plane has a pilot and eight passengers on board. Australian Air Search and Rescue authorities located the plane in the Northern Territory but have been unable to make contact with the pilot. The plane has crossed the Queensland border and is about 220 kilometres north-west of Mount Isa. A Royal Flying Doctors Service plane and a commercial liner are shadowing the aircraft Posted: 2:54am AEDT Light plane crashes in Qld A plane with nine people on board has crashed in north-west Queensland. The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin aircraft had been travelling from Perth to a mine site near the Goldfields town of Leonora. The plane failed to land and continued on in a north-easterly direction. Australian Air Search and Rescue Authorities say the plane came down less than an hour ago south-east of Burke Town, near Mt Isa. The authorities had been tracking the plane across two states but were unable to make contact with the pilot. A Royal Flying Doctor Service plane and a commercial aircraft had also been shadowing the aircraft. Local police are on their way to the scene. Posted: 4:49am AEDT Investigators head to scene of Qld plane crash A light aircraft carrying nine people has crashed in north-west Queensland after taking off in Western Australia. The plane was travelling from Perth to a mine site near the Goldfields town of Leonora last night when it failed to land. Australian Air Search and Rescue Authorities (AUSAR) located the Beechcraft King Air 200 twin aircraft in the Northern Territory later in the evening, but were unable to contact the pilot. The plane later came down south-east of Burketown. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will send four investigators to the scene. Transport Safety Bureau deputy director Barry Sargeant says preliminary information indicates there may have been a problem with pressurisation in the cabin. "The aircraft continued to climb rather than levelling out at its planned cruising level, and it was fairly apparent that the pilot at least was incapacitated, possibly due to insufficient oxygen in the cockpit," he said. Mr Sargeant says he doubts there were any flight recorders on a plane of that size, so they will have to use other data to establish the history of the flight. Inspector Dennis Perich says local authorities are finding it difficult to get to the scene because of the terrain. "Reports from AUSAR, which is coordinating the search in relation to this missing aircraft, say it's quite rugged country out there... it's called channel country which has a lot of rivers," he said. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) tracked the aircraft across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. "Search aircraft were diverted to intercept and establish what the nature of the problem was, but no further communication was received," she said. "Two fixed-wing aircraft from Alice Springs were tasked to intercept and continue the report on the status of the flight, and they stayed with the aircraft throughout the night." People who may be concerned that their friends or relatives were on board the plane are asked to contact Sons of Gwalia's Perth office on (08) 9263 5555 Posted: 7:24am AEDT Identity not known of plane crash victims Police and rescue workers are travelling to the scene of a plane crash north of Burketown in north-west Queensland where it is feared all eight people on board are dead. The aircraft crashed early this morning 48-kilometres south of a property called "Waradinga". Police Media spokesman, Brian Swift says the identity of the people is still unknown. "I don't know the identity or the reason for them being on the aircraft at the moment," he said. "It did leave Perth bound for Leonora, north of Kalgoorlie last night and it's reported the plane just continued to climb and to accelerate until it was apparent that there was something wrong and was monitored until it crashed." Transport bureau The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will send four investigators to the scene. Deputy director Barry Sargeant says preliminary information indicates there may have been a problem with pressurisation in the cabin. "The aircraft continued to climb rather than levelling out at its planned cruising level," he said. "It was fairly apparent that the pilot at least was incapacitated, possibly due to insufficient oxygen in the cockpit." Posted: 7:46am AEDT WA plane flies 3,000 kms before crashing in Qld Eight people are dead following a plane crash in Queensland's north-western Gulf Country. The plane apparently travelled 3,000 kilometres on autopilot across three states for several hours before crashing. Police from Burketown have just arrived at the scene of the crash. Spokesman Brian Swift says the site is very remote. "There's quite a bit of scrub and a bit of bush and that sort of stuff," he said. "It's a fair step from anywhere and it's taken police a long while to drive from Burketown and we were intending to chopper in some police from Normanton and Mount Isa. "But we've had to ground the helicopter at Normanton due to heavy fog in the crash area. "So once the fog does lift we'll probably be able to get that helicopter in and some of the experts to try and start working out what went wrong." The Beechcraft King Air 200 twin engined plane was travelling from Perth to the mining town on Leonora in the Western Australian goldfields with seven mine workers on board. Western Australian police believe at this stage the plane has depressurised, rendering all those on board unconscious, leaving the aircraft to travel on auto-pilot. Contact was lost with the pilot in Western Australia at around 9:00pm AWST. Plane tracked The Australian Air Search and Rescue Authority tracked the plane across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority tracked the aircraft across three states. Spokeswoman Beverley Atkins says it was alerted when the plane failed to respond to radio contact. "Search aircraft were diverted to intercept and establish what the nature of the problem was, but no further communication was received," she said. "Two fixed wing aircraft from Alice Springs were tasked to intercept and continue the report on the status of the flight and they stayed with the aircraft throughout the night." Two other planes shadowed the stricken craft for several hours, desperately trying to make contact with those on board before it finally crashed at Wernadinga Station, 48 kilometres south-east of Burketown in Queensland's Gulf Country at about 1:20am AEST. The mine workers are believed to be from Western Australia, Victoria and New Zealand. A local property owner was one of the first people to reach the crash scene and he remains in shock. Aviation Safety Bureau Barry Sargeant from the Aviation Safety Bureau says preliminary information indicates the the pilot was incapacitated, possibly due to insufficient oxygen in the cockpit. Mr Sargeant says he doubts there were any flight recorders on a plane of that size. "So it's up to us to use other data, to establish the history of the flight, and to tie that in with the on-site investigation," he said. Posted: 10:33am AEDT Recovery crews arrive at crash site Emergency crews have arrived at the scene of a plane crash in Queensland's north-western Gulf country which has claimed the lives of eight people. The twin engined Beechcraft King Air plane was travelling from Perth to Leonora, in the Western Australian goldfields, before radio contact with the pilot was lost. The plane, with seven miners and the pilot on board, apparently travelled on auto-pilot 3,000 kilometres across two states and the Northern Territory for several hours before crashing in remote savannah country More emerging More details are emerging about the entire incident. Barry Sargeant from the Australian Safety Transport Bureau says two other planes shadowed the stricken craft, trying to make contact with those on board. "It would appear the pilot was incapacitated for whatever reason, it's consistent with some sort of problem with the cabin pressure or oxygen system," he said. "That's yet to be determined. Of course it would appear the aeroplane was on auto pilot certainly on heading hold and maintained a constant heading until the aircraft ran out of fuel at least on one engine anyway. Plane shadowed The plane was tracked across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, and two other planes shadowed the stricken aircraft for several hours. A spokesman for Australian Search and Rescue in Canberra has confirmed the plane's wreckage was found shortly before 5:00am AEST. He says the plane came down south-east of Burketown and there are no reports of any life at the scene. Brian Hill says one of the tracking planes saw the stricken aircraft come down. "The aircraft tracking the aircraft that crashed actually saw the incident," he said. "We knew exactly where it was. "The problem was getting people there." He said the plane's wreckage was found on Wernadinga Station, about 48 kilometres south-east of Burketown, Queensland police spokesman, Brian Swift, says the impact of the crash started a fire and combined with local fog, made access to the site difficult. "It appears the fire was started by the crash by fuel or other circumstances," he said "It's nothing out of hand and we don't know yet what if any damage has been caused to the aircraft or the people inside the aircraft. "All those sort of issues will come a bit clearer as the morning goes on and we get experts on the scene from air safety and police." Wernadinga station owner, Alistair McClymont, was part of the search team which found the wreckage, just a few kilometres away from his homestead. Both he and his wife remain in shock. Experts due this afternoon Four investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Authority will arrive in the north-west this afternoon to examine the circumstances of a fatal plane crash. Deputy director of air safety investigations, Allan Stray, says the investigators will work from Normanton. "They will commence an investigation to attempt to ascertain the circumstances of what happened, why it happened and our main aim will be to see if there's any recommendations that we can bring forward to prevent this sort of thing from happening again," he said. It is believed the mine workers are from Western Australia, Victoria and New Zealand. Posted: 12:56pm AEDT Weather hampers crash investigation Poor weather is hampering emergency crews as they attempt to reach the wreckage of a plane which crashed in north-western Queensland this morning killing all eight people on board. Authorities believe the plane flew on auto-pilot after setting off from Perth last night. The twin engined plane had just set off for Leonora, in the Western Australian goldfields when radio contact with the pilot was lost. It is believed the cabin may have depressurised, rendering those on board, including seven miners, unconscious. Two other planes shadowed the stricken aircraft as it continued virtually in a straight line, before running out of fuel and crashing several hours later on a property near Burketown. The miners are believed to be from Western Australia, Victoria and New Zealand, and the pilot from Perth. Queensland Police spokesman Brian Swift says a helicopter tried unsucessfully this morning to reach the crash site. "The helicopter was going to be used to ferry people into the crash site if we could use it but due to the weather and other commitments for the chopper, it appears we may not be able to use that now but suffice to say we have people heading to the scene," he said. Mr Swift says a team of preliminary investigators was flown from Mount Isa mid-morning ready to go to the crash scene when they an get access. "They'll examine the wreckage as best they can, obviously they'll do a lot of measuring and plotting of the scene and really just reserve the scene for the arrival of the air safety experts and the police service will be required to start compiling information for a report to eventually go to the coroner." He says investigators and air safety experts will be arriving from across the state throughout the day. Posted: 4:05pm AEDT Investigation to begin The owners of a crashed twin engine plane say the aircraft had a safety check before its departure from Perth. The general manager of Central Air, Ben Martinez, says there was nothing unusual about the takeoff of the Beach King Air 200 plane last night, but 40 minutes later Air Traffic Control told him something was wrong. Contact could not be made with the pilot and he failed to land at his destination in the Western Australian goldfields. The plane later came down south-east of Burketown in North Queensland. Mr Martinez says safety systems were in place and he is waiting to hear details about the cause of the crash. The company has grounded its other aircraft and staff are assisting the Bureau of Air Safety in its investigation. Mr Martinez has expressed his sympathy for the families and friends of the deceased. He said the fact the crash site had been found quickly should mean the cause of the crash would be established soon. The Queensland Police Service says investigators will soon begin identifying the eight people who died in the plane crash. Police Spokesman Brian Swift says the disaster victim identification team is due to arrive in Burketown early this afternoon. "It could be another couple of hours before the next phase gets underway, he said. "That phase is the process of identifying the remains of the people from the crash and then preparing the bodies for transport back to Brisbane for post mortem examinations." Posted: 7:47pm AEDT Investigators sift through wreckage in N Qld Authorities are securing the site of this morning's fatal aircrash in Queensland's remote Gulf of Carpentaria, in which eight people died. Investigators have started arriving at the remote location, 50 kilometres south-east of Burketown. The remoteness of the crash site is making investigations difficult, as officials take the long trip to north-west Queensland. Local police spent today sifting through scattered wreckage and performing the grisly task of identifying the bodies of those on board. Most were miners travelling from Perth to Western Australia's gold fields. The cabin of the plane is thought to have depressurised, causing it to fly on autopilot across three states before running out of fuel. It is an eerie scenario which local police inspector Jim Mackenzie likens to the crash which killed American golfer Payne Stewart. "They thought it was absolutely unique when the Payne Stewart incident occurred and it seems at this point anyway, that this is almost an identical thing" The Sydney Morning Herald Wednesday, September 6, 2000 By PHILIP CORNFORD and GREG ROBERTS A spiral-bound manual in the plane's wreckage was opened at the page giving advice about procedures to enact in the event of problems with decompression. Perhaps the pilot of the ill-fated Beechcraft 200 King Air had asked one of his seven passengers to look up the procedures, concerned that the oxygen supply may have been low. More likely, it was a macabre coincidence, the manual lying incongruously yesterday amid the debris of VK-SKC at the site of its crash after a haunting and doomed flight 3,104 kilometres across Australia. The last message from the plane came 33 minutes into the flight. "Stand-by," the pilot, Ken Mosedale, radioed, blissfully unaware that he and his seven passengers were already dying. Nine minutes later, the steady pulse of Mr Mosedale's heavy breathing was the only sound coming from the Central Air twin-engined King Air 200 flying 26,000 feet over the West Australian desert. Like a silent shadow, death was slipping quickly over the plane's occupants and, with their judgment impaired by oxygen deprivation, they had no awareness of its approach. Mr Mosedale, 50, father of two, was a veteran flier. The passengers were miners from Leonora. Some of them might have been laughing, feeling slightly drunk. "It can be like drinking three glasses of wine - you feel wonderful," an RAAF expert told the Herald. "But you're dying and you don't realise it." In another minute, they would lose the capability of critical judgment. Hand-eye co-ordination would not be possible. In another minute they would lose consciousness. Two minutes later, they would be dead, slumped in their seats as VK-SKC flew on autopilot for another 4 hours, steering unerringly its course of 050 degrees until it crashed near Burketown on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The position of the bodies in the wreckage indicated that one of the passengers had joined the pilot in the cockpit. The cause of death is believed to be hypoxia. What caused this fatal failure of oxygen supply is not known, but a sudden depressurisation of the plane is suspected. In that case, emergency oxygen masks should have dropped in front of the pilot and passengers. Mr Mosedale would then have taken the King Air down to below 10,000 feet, where pressurisation is unnecessary. But it is suspected this emergency supply failed, too, because VK-SKC continued on its ghostly flight, gaining - not losing - altitude, its radio silent in the immense and dark distance of inland Australia. With Mr Mosedale dead, this should have been an impossible journey, from Perth in the south-west of the continent, diagonally across the dead centre to the northern rim within reach of Cape York Peninsula. For five hours, from 9.10pm Sydney time Monday to 2.10am yesterday, VK-SKC's progress was shadowed by radar and other aircraft. Ground and air crews felt helpless as they waited for what they all knew to be inevitable when the plane exhausted its fuel. Royal Flying Doctor Service pilot Steve Patrick shadowed its final moments after intercepting the King Air 110 nautical miles north of Alice Springs in an astounding feat of dead reckoning. "The plane was slowly descending the whole way, and then it descended into the ground," he said. "There was an explosion [and] a fire straight after." The final flight of VK-SKC began with high expectancy in Perth. Miners were heading for the gold town of Leonora, 500 kilometres north-east, in two chartered planes. Only one plane was to make it. At 9.10pm, VK-SKC took off, cleared to a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet, its heading 050 - a bearing east-north-east - a direct course to Leonora. Its expected flight time was 80 minutes. Thirty-three minutes later, air traffic controllers at the Airservices Australia operations centre at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne saw that VH-SKC was 600 feet above its approved ceiling and still climbing. They made radio contact and asked the pilot to report. Mr Mosedale radioed "stand-by", a standard response when a pilot wants to make a check. It was the last voice contact from VH-SKC. Radar showed that the plane was still climbing. Concerned but not panicking, ASA issued an Alert Phase, warning the Australian Maritime Safety Authority in Canberra that a crisis might be pending. Nine minutes later, 9.49pm Sydney time, Melbourne tried unsuccessfully to radio Mr Mosedale. The ASA controller realised the "mike" button on the plane's radio was switched on. "He reported that he could hear what sounded like heavy breathing," an ASA spokesman said. "It was very quick, a short period of time. Then the radio began breaking up." The controller had heard enough for him to believe the pilot had fallen asleep. Suspecting the most obvious cause, loss of oxygen, and knowing its consequences, the ASA moved to distress phase, launching a search by Australian Search and Rescue (AusSAR). By then, Mr Mosedale and his passengers were beyond saving, said Wing Commander Suresh Babu, commanding officer of Aviation Medicine for the RAAF, an expert on hypoxia. To get to 25,600 feet it was necessary for the pilot to be breathing at ground level rates. A rapid depressurisation and loss of oxygen at that altitude would have suddenly reduced the supply of oxygen to a quarter of that. The impact would be immediate. In one minute would come lightheadedness, dizziness. In the second minute, breathing becomes heavier and more rapid as lungs seek to compensate. Peripheral vision becomes impaired. "You get tunnel vision literally," Wing Commander Babu said. "You lose hand-to-eye co-ordination. You're starting to lose the ability to make critical judgments, but you are not aware that it's happening." After three minutes, disorientation becomes extreme. "You are basically useless," Wing Commander Babu said. "You are dying, but you are totally unaware of what's happening." After four minutes you become unconscious. After that, death is quick and painless. Only 39 minutes after take-off, this stealthy and rapid onset of death was well advanced for the eight men on VH-SKC. For another 15 minutes Melbourne maintained radio contact with the King Air, but was unable to get a response. At 9.51pm, radar located the plane 68 nautical miles west of Kalgoorlie, still on its heading of 050 degrees. But its altitude was 32,200 feet and climbing. At 10.40pm Sydney time, a Citation jet flying an intercept course saw the missing plane in the darkness just past its destination, Leonora. Flying close, the Citation radioed what was to become vital information. The King Air was at 34,300 feet, still tracking 050 degrees at a ground speed of 360 knots. The Citation reported it appeared to be flying normally. Ten minutes later the Citation was running short of fuel, and was ordered to fly to Kalgoorlie. But its information enabled ASA and AusSAR to plot VK-SKC's progress by dead reckoning. At 12.26am Sydney time a United Arab Republic flight en route from Sydney to Singapore observed VK-SKC north-east of Alice Springs. Two aircraft were dispatched - a Royal Flying Doctor Service Pilatus PC-12 and a Metroliner - from Alice Springs. Incredibly, flying blind in the night with only visual aids, they found VK-SKC at 32,000 feet about 110 nautical miles north of Alice Springs, and began shadowing it. At 1.51am Sydney time they reported VK-SKC was 229 nautical miles east of Tennant Creek, on course. Inevitably, it was running out of fuel. Also short of fuel, the Metroliner had to break off, leaving the RFDS plane as the only witness to the end of the epic and pilotless flight of VK-SKC. Smoothly, on course - just as it had flown across the entire continent - VK-SKC headed earthwards. There was no sudden plunge. Instead, it went in as it would for a landing, a gradual descent. At 2.10am Sydney time VK-SKC crashed 34 nautical miles south-east of Burketown. In planes in the air and on airfields across Australia, at ASA in Melbourne and AusSAR in Canberra, grim and sad men waited on the final message from the Flying Doctor plane. "There was a whole stack of people who felt bloody helpless," an ASA spokesman said. "That flight will haunt us all."