- | ACCIDENT DETAILS |
Date: | April 21, 1942 |
Time: | 2127 |
Location: | Pine Creek, Australia |
Operator: | Guinea Airways Limited |
Flight #: | ? |
Route: | Brisbane - Bachelor Field |
AC Type: | Lockheed 14 Electra |
Registration: | VH-ADY |
cn / ln: | ? |
Aboard: | 12 (passengers:10 crew:2) |
Fatalities: | 12 (passengers:10 crew:2) |
Ground: | 0 |
Summary: | The aircraft was on a government charter carrying US teletype operators from a course they'd completed in Brisbane. They departed Archerfield (Brisbane) at 0622 EST and refuelled at Charleville, Cloncurry, and Daily Waters, departing from Daily Waters at 1655 Central Standard time. From there a chain of events happened and they remained lost in scattered thunderstorms and drizzle and the blacked out North, being told by Darwin D/F that they were over a hundred miles north of where they really were, due to the inadequacies of the equipment at that time of day, the storms and long distance. In an attempt to force land before running out of fuel, they probably had an engine failure from fuel starvation in the lower engine as they oozed around in a slow turn where the captain would have been peering forward out of an open window, trying to locate a lighter (more grassy) spot in the bush to put down in rain. They probably would have been very slow so as to descend rapidly when a likely spot was sighted and on increasing power on the remaining engine the Electra flipped into a vertical bank and struck a ridge top. The wreckage was found on 6/22/1943. We feel that they would have been very slow so as to descend rapidly when a likely spot was sighted and on increasing power on the remaining engine the Electra flipped into a vertical bank and struck a ridge top as one wing was undamaged and removed from the site when it was found. Lockheed 14s were renown as nasty buggers at low speed on one engine. |
Sources
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