Meanwhile back at the ranch.....
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Northern Territory News – Sat 30 August 2003
Ring of truth in pilot’s story
Prosecutor tells court
By Bob Watt
Court Reporter
A pilot’s story about being told to fly an aircraft that had lost electrical power, and his chief pilot saying to tell no-one about it, had a “ring of truth”, a federal prosecutor said yesterday.
The chief pilot’s counsel countered that the young, inexperienced pilot made up the story to cover himself after mismanaging a transient event in flight.
Federal prosecutor Jack Lewis and defence counsel John Langmead SC were making final submissions in a case brought against Ngukurr Air former chief pilot Hone Pihama Edwards.
Edwards, 41, has pleaded not guilty to aviation charges of not recording an aircraft defect and not ensuring an aircraft was safe to fly.
Last night Magistrate John Lowndes reserved his decision until Thursday.
Pilot Benn Vandenberg, 24, told Darwin Magistrates Court the Cessna 210 lost electrical power on a flight from Tindal Airport (Katherine) on May 2 last year and he turned back.
At Tindal, Edwards had started the aircraft with a power cart and told him to fly it to a maintenance company at an airstrip near Noonamah, south of Darwin.
Mr Lewis said Mr Vandenberg’s evidence that Edwards said to him, “Hey Benn, better keep this between ourselves”, and being given a hand-held radio to help him fly out of the controlled zone around Tindal “has a ring of truth”.
Mr Langmead said it was a “reasonable hypothesis” that Mr Vandenberg, having demonstrated his inexperience by failing to understand the aircraft’s electrical system, created the story to cover his shortcomings.
Last edited by MIss Behaviour; 1st Sep 2003 at 14:02.