Incident Overview
Description
The Avro 691 Lancastrian operated on a flight from the United Kingdom to Australia. The initial stages to Karachi were carried out by BOAC. The continuing legs from Karachi to Colombo, Cocos Islands, Perth, Gawler and Sydney were carried out by Qantas. Lancastrian G-AGLX was a former RAF Lancaster bomber, converted for civilian use. Reportedly the departure from Colombo’s Negombo RAF Station was delayed for two hours because of a fault in the plane’s radio equipment. After departing for the flight across the Indian Ocean to the Cocos Islands, the crew radioed position reports. The last position report received was at 18:00 hours Perth time. The scheduled report at 18:30 was never received and the aircraft was reported missing. The point at which the Lancastrian last reported, north of Cocos Islands was within the inter-tropic area where the weather front was probably at its worst over the whole route. An extensive search failed to find a trace of the aircraft, even a ? faint undecipher- able signal, such as could have originated from a dinghy transmitter”, was picked up by a searching R.A.F. Liberator based on the Cocos Islands, shortly before dusk on March 24. The Qantas crew consisted of Capt. Thomas First Officer McClelland, Navigating Officer Nuske, Radio Officer McBean, Flight Steward Porteous, and the passengers: Mr. J. Dobson. Mr. J. Knight, Mr. H. Marshland, Mr. J. H. Vose, Mr. H. E. Witteyi
Source of Information
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50332493http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50332493Primary Cause
Radio equipment malfunction leading to delayed reporting and subsequent loss of aircraft.Radio equipment malfunction leading to delayed reporting and subsequent loss of aircraft.Share on:
