Three killed in NT highway plane crash
 

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=321591

Three German nationals have been killed in a light plane crash on to the Stuart Highway, north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.
Police believe the pilot was trying to making an emergency landing on the highway when it crashed.
The charter plane was one of three planes in a group en route from Western Australia when it crashed about 20km north of Elliott just before 11am (CST).
The planes were travelling from Katherine to Kings Creek Station when the crash happened completely blocking the Stuart Highway....

Anyone know any further details about the pilot and charter company?

I'm just guessing here, but it soudns like one of those Goanna Air Tours (where people from overseas hire 172's and there's about anywhere from 3 - 10 planes flying in company with the lead plane being an Aussie guy that has organised most things in advance) flying around the bush

Definately not Goanna!!!
They stopped business some time back. Killed off by the ASIC debacle.

Ah, fair enough. Been a while since I have flown up that way.

No winners here.
 

Terrible stuff. It sounds like it may well be the same mob who made the wrong entry to Kununurra (joined Left Base on RWY 30 from the South, RWY 30 is R hand <due rotary traffic> and joining Base at a busy CTAF<R> is generally a bad idea) a few days ago and got into an argument with a local pilot about it. I'm certainly not trying to pass judgement or sling mud but I wonder whether this was really a CHTR flight or if the press got it wrong. And how do they get that it's from WA? Perhaps the aeroplane is registered here. Dunno, will wait to hear from the ATSB. At any rate it's always especially sad when this sort of thing happens so far from home.

An educated guess would be that they have come here on holidays hired the aircraft from someone. Australia is a great place to go VFR flying compared to Europe!!

Damn unlucky to actually crash on the highway, it's really just a long runway.

Bad luck
 

From what the witness said they may have hit a powerline / telephone line. V bad luck out this way.

ABC news has a video of the scene (scroll down to "latest video and audio") .. I guess they just never made it to that "one long runway".

Practically no powerlines or poles out there to hit .. but roadside signs pose a hazard, as at least one RFDS pilot found to his great concern - when he tried a shortcut by using the Eyre Hwy (quite a number of years ago), instead of the runway .. :(

I seem to recall he shortened a wingtip on a road sign .. and got grounded for 6 months for his less-than-attentive piloting skills ..

Had a friend/work colleague who landed his Cherokee on the Coolgardie-Kalgoorlie Rd quite a number of years ago, when a tank crossover valve failed .. and he was going quite well until a wing hooked a big road sign .. and it took the wing off ..

I can see at least two large road signs in that ABC news vid, and I would rate them as a possible likely factor in the crash.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/

Word is it was WLQ out of Jandakot on private hire

RIP :(

Looks Like WLQ. Air Australia Aircraft.

Goana a Very Professional Organisation
 

Having had quite a bit to do with GOANA Air Safari's (I never had the privilege of going on one), I did observe their whole operation to be highly professional.

They would pick up their passengers in a bus, take them to their 5 star accomodation in the city of Brisbane, check flight and briefing the following day. Their briefing room resembled an Air Force Officer's Mess. (I was an Air Force Officer) and then all the well maintained, immaculately presented Cessna 172's would take off, for their first overnight destination.

This was a typical well run Australian enterprise, which brought many wealthy overseas visitors to our country, all spending big bucks.

The aircraft were meticulously maintained, cleaned and polished to the extent that they looked like they were just "out of the factory".

As well as being a Pilot, the tour director for each group was a LAME, and many of the participants became "regulars", returning often to their favourite part of the world, the land downunder.

But the bureaucracy made things difficult at every turn, until under the "security threat to our nation", it was decided that a person couldn't hold an Australian Pilot Licence, for such an excursion, unless they had been known personally for 12 months by an Australian of bona fide credentials. Obviously, a Passport is insufficient identification to prove who a person is.

Anyone can see, that a terrorist, let loose near Ayr's Rock (sorry Ularu), with a Cessna 172, and full fuel, could destroy the nation.

State Governments and Councils too all had their input, to make things difficult. The Northern Territory bureaucrats refused to register one of the Goana vehicles, left at one of the airports they visited, as the owner wasn't a permanent resident in the NT, and the battle went on and on with common sense going ot the window at every turn.

There is a saying, that when there is a flourishing activity, and a government steps in to regulate it, then that activity will eventually cease.

So the staff lost their jobs, aircraft and equipment sold off, and places like Africa now collect the $$$'s that enterprises like GOANA brought into Australia.

But of course, any country that can pay its Telco CEO's $22 million p.a. doesn't need little enterprises like GOANA ...

R.I.P Goana, you are sadly missed.

Well put Curlyw, you could probably put that in the 'ASIC card renewals' thread as well.

Interesting sometimes to think.........

I've often been over the same areas, in the same aircraft types, where people have gone down.. Crashed... Ended in fatalities etc...

But when you're up there, with the engine humming away... You quite often get misled into believing you're invincible. 'What could go wrong, everything seems right'....

Something like this should remind us all that it CAN happen to us...

Know your stuff, know you're aircraft.... and when you're flying along, always quiz yourself.... "What would I do now if [this] happened". Always have a little escape plan :ok:

GOANA Air Safari's
 

Me again, CurlyW. GOANA flew over 40,000 hours during its term of operation, and no person received a scratch in all that flying time.

A good effort ... Well Done.

ASIC Card Renewals
 

Hi thank you for your kind words ... ASIC card renewals have to be renewed every two years, at $182 per renewal ... another Government Rip Off.

Some of the things they want confirmed are, amongst other things, your date of birth - isn't that unbelievable.

So, next time my renewal comes up, I thought I'd put in the 10th November 2007, with a note saying that to pay their exhorbitant costs, you can see that I was born yesterday.

Cheers to all ...
CurlyW

GOANA was an acronym for Go On A Nice Adventure. Used to see them a fair bit years ago.

DF.

was scary playing dodge the 172 when they arrived en-mass at Ayers Rock..

The idea of GOANA is neat and it's a pity they aren't still operating. However the only time I saw them in action they appeared to have neglected doing sufficient homework. Inbound to Broome, first aircraft called at 15nm instead of 30nm and subsequent aircraft pilots were out of their depth. Their prior scenic flying around the horizontal waterfalls had resulted in them becoming strung out so each pilot as effectively on their own.

All my airborne encounters with Goanna were pleasent.
One day I encountered a long line of Goanna aircraft at the fuel bowser and they let me jump queue - now thats consideration.

GOANA were a sad victim of government stupidity.

I arrived from the south into Gladstone as they were coming in from the north, the first one reported 10NM just before me.......so the plane was to drag em off and beat them in:} which I did with ease.....and refuelling as they all arrived one after another.

Great site actually, so long as you got to the fuel pump firts:E

J:ok:

Drove past the site yesterday en route to Alice Springs.

Word from the locals was that he had almost set down when a car appeared head on and he pulled up and into the wire.

Its a single strand, literally the only obstruction over the highway for a couple of hundred kilometres in each direction. Poor buggers.

They were probably less than 5 miles from the Elliott air strip.

Onetrack,have a look at the front page of the Sunday Territorian,(nt news.com.au)They sure look like power poles to me!The town of Ellior suffered a power outage as a direct reult of the accident

Given the amount of irresponsible stupid stuff I've seen people get away with in the territory that is terribly unlucky.:{

Mantraps??
 

Yet more aviators die as a result of collisions with power lines. Does no-one care?

Ah what are you suggesting bushy, that they should all be removed in case aircraft require that area to set down in after an engine failure?
The Comet.

Was a pain in the ear having to listen to them block the west Kimberly CTAF with their German chatter as well. went on for well over an hour, and they didn't care about anyone trying to make radio call, they just chattered over the top of them. :ugh:

comet
 

There are many deaths every year when aircraft collide with power lines. Most of the power companies have been government run, and have been unco-operative. It is not difficult to make power lines more visible, but they don't seem to care.
One day it may happen to someone near you.

Bushy, get off the grass! To make power lines more visuable the only way I know of is to put coloured balls on them and do you have any idea how much that would cost? Even at $10 ea there are millions of km's of wires in this country. Not to mention the wind loading of the cables and insulation degrading they would cause for major trunk main at 100,000 odd volts especially when wet.
It is one thing to put a few up around airports quite another to try and put them everywhere.
I am only guessing here but going on what I have read elsewhere I believe it is fairly normal even encouraged in europe to head for a road ( not freeway) if you should have an engine failure. Having been there I must say power lines over there tend not to follow country roads so much but rather cut across paddocks, country roads tend to be quiet traffic wise, sealed unlike ours, and there paddocks are smaller than here and often surrounded by stone walls/fences.( not the best landing places).
Over here it is the opposite and few if any instructors would tell there students to head towards a road.
This I am guessing is where they unfortunately came undone.

mostlytossas

A number of years ago, it was the practice to put balls on the few lines crossing the Stuart Highway. The practice was dropped due to cost cutting.

Its not uncommon for outback roads to be turned into temporary runways for medivacs. You will be aware there are sections actually designated as emergency RFDS strips, some including piano keys at each end.

I have to stand corrected on my earlier statement that they hit the only line within a few hundred kilometres.

There's also a triple line crossing the highway a few kilometres to the north. Talking to a sparky who's worked on them, they're the only two lines across the highway in a 700km stretch. Not too expensive to have strung a few balls.

And exactly how many occurred in Australia last year?

We been hanging these buggers on powerlines fer years in the Top End


http://www.nt.gov.au/powerwater/imag...sheets/bat.jpg

OK my apologies I took Bushy to mean ALL cables near roads like the ones that run parallel with country roads ( for ease of access ) for hundreds of km's. It sounds that they were extremely unlucky to hit the one odd cable that crossed the highway. Surprises me that a single cable as reported didn't break at the insulator or snap. What guage are they around there?
Incidentally I am a sparky also hence my interest in how it could happen.
As PF said above does not happen very often the last I can remember was Maslin's chopper flying into heavy cables across a valley at Burinjuck NSW at least 15yrs ago.

Mate

Extremely unlucky is an understatement.

No comment on the cause of him wanting to land on the highway but if he could have gotten a couple more minutes out of it, he could have made the Elliott strip.

Or if the car hadn't happened along when it did, he would have run under the wire.

I wondered that the wire was still strung up. He certainly damaged the system enough to knock out power along the line.

My layman's guess was that he just snagged a wheel as he pulled up at low speed and it effectively tripped him in nose first.

I saw a Thorpe 18 take out powerlines back in 1977 but only one of the three lines actually came down.

As far as luck goes, its in the same category as the two guys standing on a bridge in the middle of nowhere Kakadu a few years back. A landcruiser with trailer drove by and, just as it got to them, the trailer broke its coupling and took them both out.

very interesting read indeed...

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...058_prelim.pdf

Hmmmm? Have a look at these reports I came across??:rolleyes:

Print Email Add to My Stories
Pilot of fatal plane crash was sightseeing: report

Posted 3 hours 25 minutes ago
A report into a plane crash that killed three German tourists on the Stuart Highway near Elliott in the Northern Territory last month has revealed the pilot was flying low on a sightseeing exercise.

The preliminary Transport Safety Bureau Report says the tail of the plane struck powerlines on the Stuart Highway, causing it to nosedive into the ground then flip onto its roof.

During radio conversations the pilot of the plane said he was descending to get a better look at the Highway.

A witness in a car says the plane flew over them at tree top level before crashing.

The report says conditions on the day were fine and there was nothing wrong with the plane, although it was overloaded.
A photo taken from the plane a week before the crash showed it flying over a Western Australian beach at 20 metres!!!:ugh:

pp

GOANA world-class
 

My wife & I (Americans) thouroughly enjoyed our GOANA trip around NSW in early 2000. We intended to do a Queensland tour; but before we could return, the regs put them out of business.
They ran a world-class operation from my perspective as a customer. I have never flown a C172 that performed like the one I flew for 10 days downunder! I can believe 40,000 injury-free flying hours. We had one lady who was stung by a scorpion at Broken Hill. Curlyw has it right -- the people as well as the equipment were tops. What a way to see Australia!!!
Curlyw is right about Africa too. One of the parties that flew with us in 2000 did an air safari in Africa, and we're looking into it.