Plane down Lake Eyre North?
Join Date: Dec 2000
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the latest.
Bogged plane at Lake Eyre a monument to bad day in the outback - ABC Rural (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
call it a comedy of misfortune, i call it a comedy of errors.
Bogged plane at Lake Eyre a monument to bad day in the outback - ABC Rural (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
call it a comedy of misfortune, i call it a comedy of errors.
Thread Starter
Leave nothing but footprints ? Is there any onus on the owner to remove the carcass of the aircraft from the lake ?
DF.
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ABC Rural News has done a pretty good interview with the Searey owner and he's thoroughly explained the whole exercise.
The part I find difficult to understand, is why anyone would choose to land for a refuelling, in the middle of an Australian Outback salt lake!
These lakes are treacherous in the extreme, and it's rare to find one that has solid ground under the salt.
Lake Eyre plane crash rescue fails
The part I find difficult to understand, is why anyone would choose to land for a refuelling, in the middle of an Australian Outback salt lake!
These lakes are treacherous in the extreme, and it's rare to find one that has solid ground under the salt.
Lake Eyre plane crash rescue fails
If you go back to post #8 in this thread you will see that I wondered exactly the same thing. Maybe the other two went along to stickybeak & got more than they bargained for!
I also have to question the wisdom of the chopper coming down from Moomba so late at night to pick everyone up.
DF.
I also have to question the wisdom of the chopper coming down from Moomba so late at night to pick everyone up.
DF.
why anyone would choose to land for a refuelling, in the middle of an Australian Outback salt lake!
Thread Starter
there are a lot of airstrips around there. Coober Pedy, Oodnadatta, William Creek,
DF.
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In the ABC interview we learned that the pilot landed well out from the shore.Unfortunately he must not have been aware that salt lakes although they look smooth and lovely and hard in the middle actually dry from the shore and the last place to become hard is the deep middle area. Too many pilots have learned this lesson the hard way. There are hundreds of dry salt lakes scattered across inland Australia. If you are forced to land on one and don't have first hand information about the hardness of the surface land as near as you can to the shore where the shallow mud dries first.
Old Akro, if you read the article again you will see where it says they were heading for William Creek
But on track from Innaminks there is a very, very nice strip at Mungeranie which is about halfway along the 210 nm leg from Innaminka and another station strip on track about halfway between Mungeranie & lake Eyre North. And it looks like there is one at Kulamarina Station about 35nm East of Lake Eyre North. And it looks like there is one adjacent to a well head a few nm North of Lake Eyre North.
I've done many flights in that genera area and the number of strips seemingly in the middle of nowhere always surprises me.
Man Bilong Balus long PNG
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I've done many flights in that genera area and the number of strips seemingly in the middle of nowhere always surprises me
If there was no established airstrip within about 15 minutes drive from the rig they simply dozed and graded a strip nearby. As a consequence there are many strips scattered over the Cooper basin. I still have somewhere in my filing cabinet a list and co-ordinates of quite a few of these rig strips.
I remember once arriving in the circuit area of a brand new strip next to a drilling rig and having to hold for about 10 minutes whilst the grader finished the strip off. It was with a certain amount of amusement that whilst orbiting overhead I noticed an old strip in the adjacent claypan just over the nearby sand ridge.
There were a few salt lakes nearby, one of which from memory had the somewhat amusing name of 'Lake Koolkooltinnie.'
