by Jim Eames
‘It’s a key scene to the entire movie. That’s why it’s in there. It launches their entire odyssey across country—because they couldn’t fly.’
Not that Ernie Beyl and the Qantas team cared much. They just sat back and watched the movie surge at the box office, along with Qantas’s image across the world.
9
DANGEROUS SKIES
Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man line: ‘Qantas never crashes’, while achieving invaluable credibility for the airline, also presented its own challenges in separating myth from reality. Not only has Qantas had its share of accidents over its 95-year history but it has also managed to kill a few people along the way. In fact, the whole air safety issue in relation to Australia’s national carrier has been plagued by a mixture of half-truths and misconceptions that have confused the issue in the minds of some.
What is fact is that, between its formation at Longreach in 1920 and 1934—its earliest days as an outback airline—crashes cost the lives of four passengers and three crew while more than 40 of its passengers and eleven crew died during the war years, either through accidents or enemy action. Between the end of the war in 1945 and 1951 thirteen passengers and eight crew died, ten in a Lancastrian that disappeared without trace over the Indian Ocean in 1946 and seven in a de Havilland Drover off Lae, New Guinea, in 1951.
What is also fact is that the airline has never ‘lost’ a paying passenger since the advent of the jet age with the introduction of the Boeing 707 in the late 1950s, although it’s been a close run thing on several occasions. Such a record has had much to do with training and airmanship, augmented by that other essential—luck.
Although an airline’s excellent safety record has obvious public relations advantages, handling such an advantage is a complex issue and one fraught with risks. While the temptation might be there to highlight those advantages, they have the capacity to change dramatically in an instant the next day, next week or in the year ahead, should your luck run out. But a continuing value is there, in the public’s image of an airline with the highest engineering and operational standards, part of the consequence of which is a subtle message of safety. There is no doubt Qantas has been the beneficiary of this for decades, but just how slender the margin between life and death has been is little short of remarkable.
A Constellation crash at Mauritius is an appropriate place to start because it demonstrates the requirement for split-second decision-making in the cockpit and the exemplary performance of the crew in the minutes after the crash.
Light rain was falling outside the terminal building at Plaisance airport, Mauritius, in the late afternoon of Wednesday, 24 August 1960, as the 28 passengers sat waiting to board their Super Constellation Southern Wave for the next stage of their flight to Australia, twelve hours through the night to a refuelling stop at Cocos Island.
The Mauritius to Cocos sector was then the longest overwater flight without any alternative landing field on the Qantas network and Southern Wave was fully loaded with 25,000 litres of highly inflammable aviation fuel, including 2275 litres in each of her wingtip tanks.
The crew of twelve, under 48-year-old Captain Ted Ditton, included first officer Dennis Patrick; two second officers, Ray Miller and Graham Quinn; two flight engineers, Eric Chuter and Maurie Pickens; navigator, Len Sales; and radio operator, Doug Hocking. Hocking’s role was unique, as, although radio operators had been phased out of all Qantas sectors by 1960, they were still necessary on the Mauritius–Cocos flight, which would be out of range of voice communications and require the use of Morse code.
Ushering passengers to their seats as they boarded shortly before 5 p.m. was senior flight steward Pat McGann and his cabin crew: Alan Mackie, Neville Foster and Marion Stewart-Dawson.
Maurie Pickens, who would be the operating flight engineer on the sector, was closely monitoring his instrument panel as Ditton, a 25-year flying veteran, began the sequence of starting the four Wright Cyclone engines one at a time, while McGann and his team ran through the safety drill with the 33 adults and five children down the back.
A light misting of taxi-way water could be seen flicking up behind the aircraft as Ditton turned Southern Wave and lined up at the end of the runway, then, with all throttles open and all four engines producing 13,000 horsepower, they were on their way.
The take-off run is when an aircraft is at its most vulnerable, when gravity, speed and the weight of the machine all enter the mix, along with the available length of runway. All need to be carefully calculated to provide the crew with two critical speed markers—known in aviation parlance as V1 and V2. This night at Mauritius V1 had been calculated at 112 knots (207 kilometres per hour) and V2 at 115 knots (213 kilometres per hour).
Cockpit procedures dictate that, while the captain’s total attention is directed to flying the aircraft, the first officer monitors the speed and calls V1 when that speed is reached. If an engine failure should occur before V1, then the take-off should be aborted, but if a failure occurs after V1 it is then considered too late to stop on the remaining length of runway and the aircraft is lifted off, the engine feathered and fuel dumped to bring the aircraft’s landing weight down before returning to the airfield.
Flight engineers like Pickens and Chuter were well aware of the idiosyncrasies of the Wright Cyclone engines, which sometimes performed in a peculiar manner in the tropics, with a tendency to briefly drop horsepower for a second or two then quickly snap back to normal. As the aircraft reached towards 100 knots both saw the brake pressure gauge on the No. 3 engine drop slightly although the oil, fuel and temperature gauges all appeared normal.
But when the gauge hadn’t flicked back up again as the aircraft reached 110 knots, Pickens waited no longer, shouting the call no pilot ever wants to hear: ‘Failure engine No. 3.’
What happened next is a classic example of how everyone can be performing perfectly but circumstances intervene.
Pickens’s ‘failure’ call came the very instant first officer Dennis Patrick was about to call ‘V1’, and in the several seconds that followed Ditton, who had not heard the call ‘V1,’ did what he was trained to do, closed the throttles, threw the engines into reverse pitch and slammed on the brakes.
But for the 50-tonne aircraft, it was too late and Southern Wave overran the end of the runway, ploughed through a grass safety strip, bounced over a low embankment and, with its undercarriage collapsing, plunged nose first into a rock strewn gully and burst into flames.
As fate would have it, three Qantas representatives—Jim Cowan, a former navigation officer, and two ground engineers, Ron Barrett and Don Kennedy—had been watching the take-off from a balcony on the terminal building and heard the scream of the engines into reverse thrust as it skidded off the end of the runway. They ran to their car and headed off down the centre of the airstrip, passing the airport’s fire tenders on the way. Ahead of them smoke was rising from the Super Constellation.
Senior flight steward Pat McGann, sitting beside Alan Mackie on the right-hand side of the cabin towards the front of the aircraft, knew something serious was about to happen even before the aircraft skidded off the runway.
‘There was a young child sitting in a seat just a few feet from me, and as the plane swerved to the right I unbuckled my harness—telling Alan I was going to protect the child—it was purely an instinctive movement—but, as I got up, the port undercarriage collapsed and I was slammed into a map of the world on the cabin wall!’ McGann recounted years later.
Within seconds of the aircraft stopping, McGann was shouting ‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’ at the top of his voice and struggling rearward through passengers and scattered in-cabin baggage to the galley door behind the wing on the left-hand side of the aircraft, only to find it blocked by heavy frozen-food boxes and an American passenger trying to open the door. McGann, a big man, grabbed the panicking passenger and shoved him away from the door, but as he began to clear the boxes the American was back again, shouting in terror and again trying to get to the
door. McGann, now conscious of flickering flames outside the aircraft, pushed him violently back out of the galley and onto the floor, yelling to Mackie: ‘Grab him, and don’t let him back in. If he tries to come back in here again, hit him.’
Clearing a path through the boxes, McGann had to use all his strength to open the jammed door just as a tongue of fire leapt through the opening and over his arm. He was now faced with every cabin crew’s nightmare—a fire at the exit.
McGann later confessed at that moment he felt there was little chance of survival, fully expecting the aircraft to explode and kill them all. But training and survival instinct took over and that door was their only chance to get people out alive. ‘Although we were scared witless, we couldn’t afford to be scared,’ he recalled.
These were the days before elaborate escape slides on aircraft. With Marion Stewart-Dawson ushering passengers towards him, McGann stood in the doorway making sure they jumped to the ground below. Anyone who hesitated at the prospect of the 3.6 metre drop received a shove in the back. Despite the incredible chaos, fear and noise, McGann forever recalled seeing one older gentleman, when told to get out, slowly stand up, take his jacket out of the coat locker and put it on before strolling to the exit—as if he had all the time in the world.
Stewart-Dawson was now shouting at McGann to get out himself but there was no way he was going to leave yet. When she continued to protest he grabbed her by the collar and her backside and literally threw her out of the exit, only later to learn she had broken an ankle in the fall.
Once outside and making his way along the outside of the fuselage, McGann heard flight engineer Chuter shout there was a woman who had suffered a fractured leg after jumping to the ground.
‘I grabbed her by the arms and Eric took her feet. She was so heavy we could hardly move her.’ McGann shouted for help, Alan Mackie arrived and the three of them carried the woman up the embankment to safety.
By now ground engineers Ron Barrett and Don Kennedy had reached the aircraft and although told everyone was off, both courageously clambered aboard and made a final check, then, with the Constellation now burning and the grass around it catching fire, they made their way to safety.
Up in the cockpit at the same time a separate drama had been unfolding for Maurie Pickens. With the collapse of the Constellation’s undercarriage as it plunged into the gully, Pickens could now smell the fuel that was escaping from fractured fuel lines in the wheel well. Then Ditton said: ‘All out quick, we’re on fire.’
But despite fire-warning lights and bells ringing everywhere across his panel, Pickens couldn’t see any fire from where he sat and began to go through his normal shut-down procedure. When the light and bell went off for No. 2 engine he fired the suppression bottle for that engine and the bell stopped.
Then the bell for No. 1 engine started ringing so he fired that bottle too and the fire went out. Score two to Pickens. But when a third bell went off Pickens found he had run out of suppression bottles to use and now began to realise for the first time how serious the fire outside might be. Turning in his seat, he saw Ditton standing there. ‘You better go,’ he said to the captain.
‘No, I’ll go when you go,’ replied Ditton and, as they reached the nearest open door, Pickens saw the extent of the fire for the first time.
‘It was horrendous,’ he recalls. ‘The whole left wing was on fire with a sheet of flames rising about 50 feet [15 m] into the air.’
At the time he was just running from the aircraft, Pickens heard someone shout: ‘Grab her!’ He turned to see a child aged about three being held by the arms from a door. Pickens ran back, stood under the door and caught her as she dropped, then headed off again with the little girl under his arm. Once they were a safe distance away Pickens stopped and looked back, just as a fuel cap was blown off and an arc of burning fuel, 10 centimetres in diameter, lit up the right side of the aircraft.
Chuter arrived and told Pickens everyone was out of the aircraft. They stood and watched, as within minutes the only recognisable sections of the burnt-out wreck were the three signature Constellation tail fins.
A headcount revealed that all the passengers and crew had survived, although sixteen people suffered injuries, including broken legs, ankles and burns, most sustained while jumping from the aircraft onto the burning grass. The injured were treated at hospital and the following day another Constellation arrived to take the passengers on to Australia. Before leaving, they compiled a telex to Qantas general manager C.O. Turner, expressing their gratitude for the ‘prompt and efficient emergency actions of the crew’.
The same aircraft also brought in Qantas and Australian Department of Civil Aviation investigators to interview crew members on the spot, although most of them didn’t mind the wait.
‘We were treated like royalty by the locals,’ says Pickens, who tells of offers of luncheons, golf days, water skiing, tours of Port Louis and a day on a plantation as the guest of its owner.
Fortunately, the fire-fighters had managed to douse the flames on the No. 3 engine before they ran out of foam and the investigation began in earnest, concentrating on those critical seconds on the flight deck when the engine failure had been identified. Several months later the Qantas Air Safety committee handed down its report, which found that no blame could be attached to any member of the operating crew.
Maurie Pickens continued to serve on Constellations until Qantas phased out the aircraft in 1963 and Pat McGann went on into the Boeing 747 era as a flight service director and become one of the company’s best-known and highly regarded members of its cabin crew.
IT’S ALL IN A NAME—OR IS IT?
Research into such events even many years later often reveals interesting sidelights. In the case of the Mauritius Constellation, it relates to the earlier war service of first officer Dennis Patrick. When war broke out, his initial application to join the RAAF in 1942 was rejected because he didn’t have his Intermediate certificate for completing Year 9. So, borrowing his father Rupert’s Intermediate certificate, he waited a short time and reapplied under his father’s name, using his Intermediate certificate instead. Rupert Patrick himself served on ground staff with the RAAF while son Dennis flew with Bomber Command in Europe until the end of the war. RAAF bureaucracy never tumbled to the fact that they both had the same birth date: 16 April 1916. In fact, RAAF records still show two Rupert Bert Patricks, one finally discharged as a flight lieutenant and the other as a leading aircraftsman at the end of the war. Sadly, Dennis was struck down by a viral infection to his liver and died within twelve months of the Mauritius accident.
Some media reports suggested at the time that with no lives lost, 24 August 1960 was a ‘lucky day’ for Qantas, but it’s a moot point. Certainly luck played its part, but rather it was the training and professionalism of Pat McGann and his crew that saved the day and resulted in only burns and a few broken bones.
The Lockheed Constellation’s twitchy engine performance called for intense monitoring, although former flight engineers like Jeff Donaldson will tell you not all the risks were in the air. According to Donaldson, crews operating out of Cairo in those days not only faced the problem of poor engine performance in hot weather conditions on take-off, but the risk of colliding with a train as well.
As the aircraft gathered speed down the runway, the crew would have to briefly open the cowling flaps slightly to cool the engine, with the result that the extra drag would cause the speed to drop off. The flaps were then shut again to ensure lift-off speed was achieved and, as Donaldson puts it, ‘the fully loaded Connie would stagger into the air with the help of the curvature of the earth.’
‘They had to check to make sure there wasn’t a train going past the end of the runway when they took off so they used to have a train timetable to make sure that wasn’t the case.’
***
Whether you were in a Constellation or a jet, flying through foreign skies meant other dangers lurked, not only problems with aircraft performance bu
t also the varying degrees of competence when it came to such areas as air traffic control. They delivered some frightening moments.
John Fulton’s Constellation had been directed into a holding pattern at 10,000 feet while waiting to land at Rome when they burst out of the clouds to see a US military Convair flash over the top of them.
‘He had seen us, we didn’t see him.’
Obviously experiencing as big a fright as the Qantas crew, Fulton heard the Convair pilot query air traffic control: ‘You have any traffic at 10,000 [feet]?’
‘No, no extra traffic,’ was the reply from the ground. At which point Fulton grabbed his own mike to remind the controller he’d told them to ‘hold’ at that altitude.
‘That was the end of the conversation and we had to get ourselves down to land by talking to other traffic. We put in a report but never heard another word about it. Not that we expected anything, as to anyone in Rome or the Middle East it was just another piece of paper.’
In 1963 Norm Field was in a Boeing 707 over France en route from Cairo to London with Captain Ron Ballard when Ballard’s quick reaction saved the aircraft. Over Abbeville in France the French air traffic controller suddenly came on the air: ‘Qantas descend immediately 1000 feet.’
‘Ron disconnected the autopilot, down we went and an Air France Caravelle charged past so close we could see the passengers looking out windows.
After the shouting stopped, Ballard turned to Field, sitting in the right-hand seat: ‘You have my permission to swear at that ATC bastard.’