Murder and mayhem

1974 plane crash kills six

Sunraysia Daily Sep 10 2020

A close-up view of the tangled wreckage of the aircraft's cabin.

Some of the men who reached the crash scene - policemen, a doctor, graziers, newsmen

A close-up view of the tangled wreckage of the aircraft's cabin. The twisted body of the pilot was in the cabin, while those of the passengers were in or near the wreck - some still strapped to their seats.

This is the sight which greeted the ground party when they reached the crashed Cessna 310H aircraft at the spot about six miles south of the Wilkurra woolshed. The wreckage indicated the plane, with six people on board fell straight out of the sky and hit at the base of a 30ft tree. There was no fire after the impact.

A picture that clearly shows the shocking conditions which the ground party had to beat to reach the wreckage. Hours of almost continuous rain has turned the country to bog that is made worse by every vehicle trying to get through. Miles of track, like this one along a boundary fence, were covered by the ground party before they begun the job of moving through scrub where there was not even a track.

Mr Paul Kempton - pilot who found the wreckage

Originally published April 8, 1974

A CESSNA aircraft missing with six Melbourne people on board was found crashed on Wilkurra Station.

Wreckage of the aircraft was scattered over a comparatively small area at the base of a 30 foot high tree.

The bodies of the pilot and five passengers were close by.

The wreckage was four miles due south of the Wilkurra shearing shed, 65 miles north east of Mildura and about 40 miles east of the course the Cessna was expected to take.

The Cessna, a twin-engine 310H, was on a flight from Broken Hill to Melbourne.

It disappeared at a time when thunderstorms were over Wilkurra and over the stations between the proposed route of the Cessna's flight and the crash site.

Indications were that the plane had plunged into the ground nose first and at terrific speed.

The forward section of the fuselage was destroyed and the cabin was split in two.

Parts of the aircraft panelling were scattered up to 250 metres south-south-west of the main part of the wreckage.

A theory put forward by experienced pilots was that the pilot of the Cessna had lost control of the plane in cloud and that it had gone into a spin.

They said the reason why he was 40 miles off course could have been because of attempts to try to get around thunderstorms.

Planes in the search had logged more than 550 search hours and had flown 200 separate sorties over 40,000 square miles up to the time the wreckage was found.

About four miles of almost inaccessible scrub, landfills and deep water holes lay between the wreckage and the nearest track.

And even most of the tracks are waterlogged after rain of the past two days.

Police are preparing to remove the six bodies by helicopter.