Newlywed pilot Jimmy Rae's last words before horrific Tiger Moth crash off South Stradbroke Island
JIMMY Rae grabbed the controls of his two-seater Tiger Moth and radioed back to base.
"Conducting aerobatics over 3500 feet," he said, preparing to thrill the French woman seated in front with a spinning view of sea and sky.
Then there was silence.
The four-cyclinder wooden plane had speared into the ocean, crashing about 400m off the coast of South Stradbroke Island.
Tiger moth pilot Jim Rae, pictured here with wife Alice on a previous trip, was killed when his Tiger Moth crashed on Monday. Picture: Facebook
HOW THE STORY BROKE YESTERDAY
Alex James Rae, 26, had recently married and was about to embark on a new adventure with his wife Alice - the pair planning an outback move to a cattle station in the Northern Territory where they had both found work.
But last night emergency crews were working to retrieve his body and that of his passenger as the French woman's distraught partner helped police contact her family.
Police search for the wreckage of the Tiger Moth. Picture: Fletcher Scott
It is understood surf life savers spotted the plane ditch into the ocean at 12.30pm, sparking a massive air and sea search.
Other pilots in the air at the time said they had no idea anything was amiss, having heard Mr Rae's voice over the radio announce he was about to perform aerial manoeuvres.
The wreckage of the Tiger Moth was spotted shortly after, having sunk 7m to the ocean floor.
Debris from the wreckage is washed up on the beach. Picture: Adam Head
Over the next few hours, pieces of the plane, including part of the propeller and its ID badge, washed into the beach.
Mr Rae, from Labrador, was one of several pilots working for Gold Coast-based Tiger Moth Joy Rides.
"We're just devastated about what's happened," owner Geoff Stillman said. "We're a very small outfit and very tight-knit, so we are all shattered."
The young pilot and adventurer, who moved to Australia from the UK with the girl he'd known since school, was about to set off on his latest adventure at the end of January.
The couple had been getting ready to move to Helen Springs, a 10,000 square kilometre cattle station in the Northern Territory.
It was to be Mr Rae's second outback adventure after he spent 18 months flying Cessnas for S Kidman and Co out of a cattle property in Southwest Queensland.
CEO Greg Campbell said Mr Rae, like many other newly-qualified commercial pilots, had completed 1000 hours flying experience with them, taking staff members between the company's vast properties and mustering cattle.
"He was a really friendly, likeable young man who always fit in well," he said.
"The respect with which he was held within our organisation was such that we were only too willing to re-employ him and his wife as well.
"It's very sad.
"I can't imagine how his wife must be holding up."
The Tiger Moth was powered by a de Havilland Gipsy Major, a four-cylinder, air-cooled, incline engine used in a variety of light aircraft produced in the 1930s.
It is believed to be the first death from the Tiger Moth Joy Ride company since it began flying in 1978.
"This is not great for this time of the year," said one operator. "It is not great for the close-knit community either. When something like this happens we all feel it.
"Jimmy was a great pilot. He was just on the radio doing a standard call out ... just before the crash happened."
Sources told
The Courier-Mail Tiger Moth Joy Rides is a responsible operation with an outstanding safety record stretching back more than 30 years.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will send a team to the site of the crash today, to begin their investigation.
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