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17th Nov 2013, 15:40

#2176 (permalink)

Dave Ed

Join Date: Jan 2010

Location: Cyprus

Age: 65

Posts: 297

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Trengganu revisited

Trengganu revisited.....

Just received a pic and some further info from Frank Chammings.
Over to Frank..............

Herewith photo of first S61’s on arrival at Trengganu January 1970.

Seeing the photo again reminded me of the pan on which the far aircraft is sitting. It was added a few weeks before, and while the site was being surveyed we heard a few gun shots.The surveyor had come across a snake and was trying to shoot it. We came over to see what the fuss was about and saw the snake, a Viper I believe. Paddy O said a gun is no good and grabbed a large stick and beat the snake to death.

For the record so that they are not forgotten, the pilots were Bill Farnell, Ken Smith and John Waddington, the engineers were Paddy O’Mara, Mike Austin and John Rankine, the Managing Pilot was Ken Bradley. We also had French pilot Daniel Pouron.

......and..........

Frank recalls the demise of a Whirlwind lost at sea.

The pilot was Ken Smith. He landed on the sea OK and elected to stay in his seat so he could stay on the radio. A RMAF S61 arrived to take him off but either didn’t have a winch or it didn’t work so they used a rope hoist. Ken had a job to get into the strop and I understand that he fell into the sea and disappeared on the other side of the aircraft because the rope hoist was so slow, I can imagine the winch operator running up the cabin pulling on the rope. He was eventually hauled aboard OK. Paddy O’Mara was on a boat hired to recover the pilot intending to be a back up for the RMAF S61 but was not needed and his endeavours to find theaircraft were in vain as it couldn’t be located. The Whirlwind was last seen drifting around the South China Sea until a storm sank it. The engine oil fanbelts had failed because an instruction to reduce the life didn’t get to the operation.
I was en-route to Trengganu in early November 1969 when this happened, I gathered all the story from the rest of the Op when I arrived. Not a lot was said about the loss, probably due to the lack of information about the life of the fan belts, communication was very difficult in those days.

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