Krusty, you're not far off the mark. A few things from my perspective. Many of the recollections below will be somewhat distorted by the nearly 20 years since the prang. Some of it is also supposition based upon discussions with various AIRTC members who were close to the detachment, the people involved, and the coronial inquest. Some of these discussions were years after the events. When this all happened I had just turned 20 and had a UPPL.
I was good mates with Rob Holmes who was one of the spotters in the second row of PLD and subsequently died before he could be extracted from the wreckage. Rob had recruited me into the AIRTC (as it was then) as a staff member when we met whilst I was learning to fly with the Scouts and he was instructing with the Air League. I was one of his pall bearers at his funeral which was between Christmas and New Year. I can picture that day very clearly.
I had finished a night shift when I heard that an aircraft had gone missing from Camden the afternoon before. I actually phoned the tower and asked them directly if it was an AIRTC aircraft that was missing as I'd known that there was a flying camp on. They told me it was and so when my night shift finished I drove to Camden to offer assistance arriving about 0900 or so.
Rob approached me to ask me to be a spotter on PLD but when he discovered that I'd just come off night shift he came back a bit later and indicated that they'd found someone else and that I should go home and sleep. I watched them take off and then left Camden. I got home about 90 minutes later to the phone ringing and a colleague from the Scouts asking me 'what the f&*king hell had been going on down there' as another aircraft had just gone in. I asked him what it was and when he told me it was a C210 I hung up on him and the afternoon became a blur of phoning my FLTCDR (who was also Rob's FLTCDR) and trying to find out information.
Indeed the crew of BUO was an 18 year old Cadet Warrant Officer by the name of Angeline (Angelina?) Neal. She was from Canberra. A bloke who I later worked with frequently in the AIRTC/ AAFC was her FLTCDR and had to tell her parents about the missing aircraft. The flying instructor was 19 if I recall and male. The other aircraft was either a QF S/O or QF cadet- I thought he was a S/O. The student pilot on the other flight was my room mate from my cadet JNCO course a couple of years earlier. Both names escape me but I'm pretty sure I'd know them if someone mentioned them.
The sortie was the last day of course on what I remember as being a beautiful summer's afternoon and so perhaps that sense of euphoria contributed to the prang.
I've not ever heard that the other aircraft saw them go in. Indeed I seem to recall it was at least a few months after the accident before the wreckage was located and so I think your part of the story about the instructor of the other aircraft coming forward may not be correct. I'd always understood that they'd 'lost contact' with the other aircraft in the manner described in the BASI report and although they suspected what had happened, weren't sure and so didn't say. However, I suspect that Pete Whitehurst may have also had an inkling/ been briefed on the possibility of what had gone wrong. It's the only reason i can think of that they were so far out of their designated search area (heading toward the dam) when they had the engine failure.
Absolutely there were some issues regarding supervision. The BASI report is actually very light on I subsequently found out some stuff about the way the flying camps were conducted by the OIC that makes my blood boil. Crazy stuff like clutch boxes in LGS (trucks) being trashed due to cadets driving them up and down the runway in the middle of the night (with a staff member in the truck at the same time) and a few other things as well. Certainly, after the fact I found out that aircraft departing 'in company' (which I took to understand as formation) to low fly past the phone box on the island off the spit in the burragorang was not an unusual occurrence. The OIC of the activity was overseas for much of the coronial enquiry (convenient) and thus the coronial enquiry didn't get to examine some aspects of the BUO prang that I felt were particularly pertinent. I've never read a copy of the findings but would like to do so. I certainly have significant disdain for the OIC and to this day believe that his actions/ inactions and the culture that he oversaw contributed directly to the prang of BUO.
Allana featured on one of those shows in the last few years whereby survivors of serious accidents are reunited with their rescuers. The paramedic who winched into the PLD crash site was featured also.
Anyway, that's about it from me on this one. Sorry if some found this boring.