1937 Airlines of Australia Stinson crash

The 1937 Airlines of Australia Stinson crash was an accident which occurred on 19 February 1937. The Airlines of Australia Stinson Model A airliner disappeared during a flight from Brisbane to Sydney, carrying five passengers and two pilots. Both pilots and two passengers were killed in the crash. One of the surviving passengers died while attempting to bring help to the other survivors.

Stinson Model A City of Brisbane crash
A Stinson Model A, similar to the aircraft that crashed.
Accident
Date19 February 1937
SummaryControlled flight into terrain
SiteLamington National Park
28.309156°S 153.117789°E / -28.309156; 153.117789
Aircraft
Aircraft typeStinson Model A
Aircraft nameCity of Brisbane
OperatorAirlines of Australia
RegistrationVH-UHH
Flight originArcherfield Airport, Brisbane
StopoverLismore Airport, Lismore
DestinationSydney Airport, Sydney
Passengers5
Crew2 (pilots)
Fatalities5; both pilots and 2 passengers died in crash (one survivor died later while searching for help)
Injuries2
Survivors3; passengers who survived crash, 1 died later while searching for help

The wreckage was found by Bernard O'Reilly of the Lamington Guest House who went looking for the aircraft believing it had failed to cross the border. The aircraft had crashed in the McPherson Range on the border between Queensland and New South Wales.[1][2][3]

Crash and discovery
Bronze statue at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat depicting the rescue

The aircraft was heard by people in Lamington and Hill View at approximately 2 p.m. on 19 February. It was circling at low altitude and then headed towards the mountain range. There was heavy rain in the area at the time. After the aircraft was found to be missing, O'Reilly believed that it must have had insufficient height to clear the mountains and subsequently crashed somewhere in the McPherson range. He hiked into the mountains to look for the aircraft on Saturday 28 February and, after camping overnight, he found the body of James Guthrie Westray, aged 25, from London. Jim Westray had received major burns and other minor injuries in the accident and went to find help, but died after he fell over a cliff.[4] Then O'Reilly found the crash site with the two survivors waiting by the wreckage: Joseph Binstead who was uninjured, and John Proud who had a broken leg. On seeing O'Reilly, they asked to shake his hand and then wanted to know the cricket scores. They had been able to get water from a creek about a mile from the crash site but had had no food. [5] The other two passengers and the two pilots died from injuries sustained in the crash.[1][2]

See also

References
  1. "Rescuer's Graphic Story of Finding of Stinson 'Plane". The Barrier Miner. 1 March 1937. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  2. "Stinson plane crash inquest". Queensland State Archives. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
    • Job, Macarthur (1991). Air Crash, Chapter 7. Aerospace Publications Pty. Ltd. p. 91. ISBN 0-9587978-9-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  4. "WESTRAY DIED FROM FALL". The Courier-mail. Queensland, Australia. 3 March 1937. p. 15. Retrieved 10 April 2020 – via Trove.
  5. "FIRST RESCUE PARTY REACHES WRECKED 'PLANE". The Newcastle Sun. New South Wales, Australia. 1 March 1937. p. 1. Retrieved 2 January 2020 – via Trove.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.