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Short Final for RWY27L at EGLL/LHR morning flight AFR15NP from Paris Charles de Gaulle (LFPG) 17/12/20
Short Final for RWY27L at EGLL/LHR morning flight AFR97HB from Paris Charles De Gaule (LFPG) 15/11/23
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Zenfolio LORD HOWE ISLAND GALLERIES
66 years ago on the night of September 28, 1948, 3 years after WWII had ended Catalina A24-381 from the RAAF’s No.11 Squadron at Rathmines air base, on Lake Macquarie tragically crashed on the side of Malabar Hill while attempting an emergency night landing on the island's lagoon.
The circling flying boat lost power, then clipped a ridge just below Malabar Hill and crashed killing 7 crew with 2 being saved after being dragged from blazing aircraft fragments. Lord Howe Island resident Roy Wilson was later awarded the George Medal (the civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross) for his rescues.
The tragedy was soon recorded as the highest loss of RAAF personnel in a peacetime accident. The incident also remains as the island's greatest disaster.
Wartime RAAF combat crews from Rathmines had first "discovered" the Pacific island, now about a two-hour flight from Sydney, using it as a turning point for training missions.
The first Cat to come to the island was for a medical evacuation back in May 1942 under Wing Commander Scotty Allen.
Soon more of these camouflaged Black Cats came to the island for a bit of badly needed rest and recreation after dangerous search-and-rescue missions, anti-submarine patrols and convoy guard duty.
The September night in 1948 that the slow-flying A24-381 and her crew met their fate they were on a navigation exercise from Rathmines. The aircraft had reached the island and was headed back west, back home to Lake Macquarie across the dark sea.
About 20 minutes into this flight, a serious fuel leak occurred, probably in a ruptured line above the engineer's head, soaking crew in fuel.
The aircraft crew immediately decided to return to Lord Howe Island to land on its lagoon. With so much petrol vapour around, however, the crew dared not transmit a distress message because of the risk of a generator spark igniting the fuel.
But then, trying to cross the island from east to west and about to descend in darkness into the lagoon, the Cat scraped its belly on the top of a basalt ledge on Malabar Hill.
There was a shower of sparks before the Cat exploded in flames, tumbling down the tree-lined slope above Old Settlement Beach, at the northern end of the island.
The tail section broke off, throwing two men out of the inferno, as the fuselage of the 64-foot (19-metre) long aeroplane disintegrated.
Today, six decades later, at least 30 pieces of sizeable aluminium wreckage, including two large Pratt and Whitney radial engines, litter the crash site, in situ, not recreated; starkly visible as white items in a clearing high above the beach.
On a recent visit to the island, H2 also saw more obvious items such as a flying boat float and wing tip in the grassy paddock. Lower down and nearer the beach are plaques and an impressive Catalina propeller monument erected in 1998 to mark the 50th anniversary of the crash.
Much further up, along a narrow walking trail on the spine of Malabar ridge itself, is a special, almost hidden monument. Easily missed on this high rock shelf, on the exact spot of the tragedy, lies a small circular plaque commemorating the tragedy and flanked by a piece of ancient, twisted metal.
Somehow, though, the Cat's dented nose turret survived the crash. In 1996 it was donated to a Catalina heritage restoration project in Amberly, Queensland.
The deeply shocked islanders had loved the magnificent old RAAF Cats. In the 1940s such aircraft had paved the way for island tourism before being later replaced by Sunderland and Sandringham flying boats.
This unusual big boat service in time would become the world's longest running and last such service.
The last commercial flying boat then left Lord Howe's lagoon on September 10, 1974, after an island airstrip was finally built.
By then, the faithful Catalinas were largely just a fading memory. The RAAF had either sold off or scrapped its surplus warbirds in the early 1950s.
Reference - Newcastle Herald 29/01/2011 Catalina catastrophe
Author: Mike Scanlon