Australia Day today marks 30 years since the horrific VH-MU2 accident that killed two pilots just north of "Meekabloodytharra" - Chris Little & Don Ende. As I indicated in #3 above 10 years ago, Chris was a young guy going places & was in the wrong place at the wrong time on that tragic night getting a lift to Port Hedland for the next chapter of his career. I hadn't met Don Ende before but he was a seasoned & highly regarded BASI accident investigator prior to returning to professional aviation. One of the ironies of this accident was that Don Ende investigated an earlier MU-2 accident in WA some 14 months before...
Here are two satellite photos taken close to the times of the respective accidents & at a first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking they are the same photo...
When I did my C441 endorsement (first pressurised turbine) a number of years ago, my learned teacher said the 2 new things that will "bite" above 10,000ft are ice & pressurisation issues & unfortunately he's been right on the money...
It's a pity our esteemed & supposedly robust regulator is such a reactive organisation & isn't out there educating the new breed of pressurised turbo-prop pilots on these issues because as we all know, history has a very bad habit of repeating itself - particularly in aviation...
RIP Chris & Don - gone, but definitely not forgotten!
