Crash at Wangaratta today

[Desert Flower]

Just saw on the Channel 10 news that there was a light aircraft crash at YWGT today. Aircraft apparently crashed shortly after takeoff & caught fire. Two occupants escaped. Couldn't be sure because of the flames, but it looked as if it had a N registration.

DF.

[Sunfish]

ABC is reporting it as an Esqual. If so a very nice aircraft. I wonder if it was the one recently acquired from Gary?

[Xray Tango]

Refuelled prior to departure, the main runway was busy and required a short wait, so the RA pilot chose to use the short grass strip, never looked good, pulled it off the ground and stalled at approx 20ft agl, this one could of easily been ovoided, guess he caught the train back to Geelong.

[Sunfish]

"refuelled prior to departure". If he had a passenger and full fuel, might he be overloaded? Payload + full fuel is approximately175 kg according to the Esqual website. T/o distance 138m.

Getting to twenty feet followed by trouble sounds awfully "flight in ground effectish". Seen it before not long ago. However a good landing - they walked away.