Had the pleasure of meeting Brian Jones who was the OIC of King Island Flight Service when Fred went missing. One point that Brian brought up was that in those days King Island had no PAL system and the lights and the FSO had to activate the lights or arrangements had to be made to leave them on overnight, and no arrangements were in place for this arrival of this flight.
If you are out their in Pprune land BJ always enjoyed a cup of coffee and a chat in the old FSU building while watching the rain p#ss down and wind blow like it does on King Island.
I believe there are number of tapes from that night doing the rounds, occasionally surface on the odd ATC training course or old SAR course.