Taking to the Skies

by Jim Eames

  In more modern times, however, there is a far more serious side to the business of low flying, underlined by the number of people who die trying it. Low flying is classified as flying lower than 1000 feet above ground level over a populated area or below 500 feet over any other area. According to Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) statistics, at least six of the 147 fatal accidents in general aviation—that part of the aviation industry which covers aerial work; flying training; and private, business, sport and recreational flying—between 1999 and 2008 were associated with unauthorised, and unnecessary, low flying.

  In ATSB they’re known as ‘avoidable accidents’, prompting the bureau to reiterate the inherent dangers in the practice and publish details of the lessons which can be learned from some of the accidents. Many of the incidents which occur in the private-flying sector have been due to pilots being unable to resist the temptation to provide their own display at low level to impress those on the ground, with the result that those watching witness the horrifying spectacle of a fatal crash. The records show a variety of causes, most involving inexperience, where pilots attempt a steep climb or a tight turn at too low an altitude in an aircraft which is simply not capable of recovery in the airspace available.

  ‘The annals of Australian accident investigation are full of the consequences of such misguided flying enthusiasm,’ says Macarthur Job, for many years editor of Australia’s Aviation Safety Digest, Australian civil aviation’s publication which is designed to bring to pilots the lessons learned from accidents.

  Job has a compendium of accidents where inexperienced pilots and their passengers have died in low-level performances at carnivals, aero club picnic days and light aircraft ‘fly-ins’. In some instances family members have died when pilots have attempted a low-level ‘beat-up’ of the family farm and crashed in front of the homestead. Even experienced pilots have paid the price, some flying former wartime fighters like the Mustang, which although designed with power enough for dogfights in battle, become death traps when mistakes are made at low level.

  Even at air shows, where crowds thrill to aerobatics, formation flying and low high-speed passes, strict limitations are in place for what can and cannot be done and the level of experience required to do it.

  But if low flying is to be done, then an air show is the place for it, although there are times when even air-show organisers have been left with their mouths open. One Australian airline pilot remembers an air show at Schofields, near Sydney, not long after the introduction of the Boeing 747 into airline service in the late 1960s early 1970s. The highlight of the show was to be a flyover by a British Airways 747, which was due to arrive in Sydney from London at an ideal time in the show’s program. The crew of the Boeing took it one step further, however, stunning the crowd by approaching tiny Schofields with its landing gear down and almost touching the runway before flying off to land at Mascot.

  Even with full approval, a highly experienced crew and hours of preparation for the performance, taking something like a 747 through its paces at an air show can have its down side. The annual air show at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the United States is regarded as the mecca for thousands of the world’s aviation enthusiasts, attracting civil and military aircraft from the early days of aviation through to the latest in commercial and military hardware. When a group of Australian enthusiasts chartered a Qantas Boeing to the Oshkosh Show in the early 1980s, the airline used the opportunity to offer the show’s organisers a flypast with the big 747-300. Their acceptance meant something of a publicity coup at an event widely televised around the world, so the airline was delighted when Australia’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) gave approval, albeit with some restrictions.

  For some still unknown reason, the restrictions were not passed to the air-show organisers and to this day there remains some dispute between Qantas’ then Director of Flight Operations, Captain Alan Terrell, who had approached the CAA, and the airline’s Flight Operations Line Director, Captain Ken Davenport, who was to command the flight, as to the height restrictions themselves. Terrell says the CAA agreement meant the flypast could not go below 500 feet. For his part, Davenport says he had no knowledge of the limitation and the two former colleagues still stand by their claims. What is certain, however, is that, in typical Qantas fashion, much preparation and training went into the venture to ensure it was safely executed.

  ‘We knew what we were doing,’ recalls Davenport, explaining that he and his crew spent six hours practising the flypast in the Qantas simulator at Mascot, where it was possible to recreate the actual event as if it was taking place at Oshkosh.

  Once at Oshkosh, their part in it all took less than twenty minutes as the 747 roared down the centre of the runway to mark the show’s opening. Davenport says he was happy with the way it all went, although a Qantas captain who was on the ground later told him he thought it was a little boring. ‘He felt we didn’t come down low enough.’

  As it turned out, back in Australia, CAA thought it was anything but boring, particularly after television news reported it had been carried out at 300 feet with the result that Qantas and Davenport were immediately issued with a ‘please explain’ why the 500 feet limit had been broken. Davenport had no argument with that. He readily admitted he’d been at 300 feet, it’s just that he claimed he was unaware of the limit. As a result he had his knuckles rapped, was demoted for six months, then reappointed by Terrell to a role similar to his original one.

  ‘It didn’t do me any harm in the end,’ Davenport says philosophically.

  Perhaps, therefore, he could be expected to have some sympathy for another airline captain who, many years before flying a DC-3 across outback Queensland, was providing his passengers with the ride of their life by flying very low across Australia’s wide-open spaces. Suddenly there was a tap on his shoulder and one of the passengers announced he was a DCA official and could the captain please explain what he thought he was doing!

  But while airline pilots might spend the vast majority of their working lifetime operating to agreed flight plans along busy air routes and, beyond actual landings and take-offs, rarely experience ‘seat-of-the-pants’ flying, there have been exceptions. Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s airport for more than 70 years until replaced by a new airport at Chep Lap Kok off Lantau Island, had more than its share of challenges—and aircraft mishaps—in its lifetime.

  Situated on the west side of Kowloon Bay, one end of its single 3352-metre runway jutted out into the bay on reclaimed land, while much of Hong Kong’s high-rise development pressed in from the other end. To the average passenger enjoying a close-up view of laundry hanging from residential windows as the aeroplane landed, it was a most unusual experience. To the crew up front it could present a rare opportunity to really test one’s flying skills in a big commercial jetliner. As one senior Qantas captain, with scores of landings at Kai Tak, admits: ‘If you achieved a good landing at Hong Kong you walked away very pleased with yourself.’

  This was because the approach took the aircraft over the harbour then across a densely populated West Kowloon before reaching a small hill, on top of which was a large checkerboard sign, at which point, while the passengers continued to look at the laundry, the pilot needed to make an almost 50-degree right turn to line up with the runway and complete his final approach. Severe crosswinds and occasional typhoon conditions made the final touchdown a character-building experience even for pilots who had been flying for decades.

  Not that such conditions worried many pilots. In fact, some captains were known to jealously protect their rights to the Kai Tak experience, frequently preferring to do it themselves rather than give their first officer a turn. After all, rank has its privileges.

  9

  Crime in the skies

  Flight 408, Trans-Australia Airlines’ last Lockheed Electra flight out of Sydney for Brisbane on the night of Tuesday 19 July 1960, had left on time and was operating normally when Flight Attendant Fay Strugnell casually placed a despatch bag on t
he vacant seat beside a passenger seated towards the rear of the aircraft. When she bent down to place her flight papers inside she found herself looking down the barrel of a rifle.

  ‘Get the captain,’ ordered the man at the other end of the gun. ‘We are not going to Brisbane.’

  Those two statements, and the dramatic events which followed, would mark Australia’s first air hijack.

  Demonstrating admirable calmness, Strugnell played for time, even having the presence of mind to suggest the man with the gun ‘wait a moment’ while she continued with her task. But 22-year-old Alex Hildebrandt wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘Get the captain or I’ll blow your head off.’

  Strugnell set off down the Electra’s central aisle, towards the cockpit, trying not to appear to be in too much of a rush for fear of attracting passenger interest. With Strugnell now out of sight Hildebrandt waved the weapon at the second attendant, Janeene Christie, and demanded she also get the captain, but before Christie could comply, Flight Engineer Fred McDonald, accompanied by Strugnell, was already heading towards them from the front of the aircraft.

  It didn’t take McDonald long to work out how serious the threat was. Not only did the intending hijacker have a sawn-off .22 rifle, but beside him on the seat were two sticks of gelignite, connected by a bare wire to a torch battery on the ashtray of the seat’s armrest.

  Now pointing the rifle at McDonald, Hildebrandt told him he wanted the aircraft to go to Singapore, but by now the aircraft’s captain, John Benton, had also sent First Officer Tom Bennett back to see what was going on. While McDonald returned to the cockpit, under the guise of checking how much fuel the Electra had, Bennett began negotiating with Hildebrandt, but when told that the aircraft must land in Brisbane the gunman became increasingly agitated. Help, however, was coming from an unexpected quarter. John Benton was aware that another of the airline’s captains and flight operations superintendent in Papua New Guinea, Dinny Lawrence, was also travelling on the aircraft. He called Lawrence to the cockpit and told him what was happening and that the passenger must be disarmed at all costs.

  Grabbing the aircraft’s fire axe from behind the cockpit, Lawrence set off to help Bennett. As fortune would have it, Lawrence was travelling in civilian clothes and, with the axe hidden under his jacket, walked passed Bennett and sat in the seat behind Hildebrandt.

  Lawrence waited a few minutes while Bennett continued to talk to Hildebrandt then leaned over the seat behind the hijacker to confirm what Bennett was telling him about the aircraft’s fuel. He explained the aircraft had no chance of making it to Singapore and might even be lucky to make it as far as Rockhampton. As he did so he began to reach for the axe under his coat. The movement momentarily distracted Hildebrandt and Bennett made a lunge for the hand holding the gelignite. In the scuffle that followed the gun went off, the bullet missing Bennett’s chest by mere centimetres and punching a hole in the aircraft’s roof. With Bennett wrestling and Lawrence wielding the axe, Hildebrandt was finally overpowered, but not before Lawrence at one stage found himself sitting on the gelignite.

  With Hildebrandt now subdued and pinned to the seat, Bennett set off back towards the cockpit after handing the axe to another passenger, Sydney man Warren Penny, with the instruction: ‘If he moves smash this across his skull.’

  Queensland police were standing by as the Electra taxied to a stop at Brisbane airport and, muttering unintelligibly, Hildebrandt was given the dubious honour of being the first hijacker to be arrested in Australia, while most of the 42 other passengers on board remained unaware of what had happened.

  Later reports indicated that Russian-born Hildebrandt had left his home at Riverstone in Sydney with eighteen pounds given to him by his mother to pay an outstanding rail fine and some money off the price of a suit he had ordered. Instead he purchased a duffle coat and with the remainder purchased a one-way ticket to Brisbane. Hildebrandt was sentenced to a total of fifteen years’ gaol on charges of attempted murder, along with other charges relating to having an explosive device on board an aircraft. In a bizarre twist he successfully appealed the sentence on the grounds that the aircraft was in New South Wales, not Queensland, airspace when he armed the explosives in the Electra’s toilet. As a result he was released after serving three years in a Brisbane gaol, only to be arrested again by NSW detectives, subsequently spending seven more years in prison.

  In late November 1960 Tom Bennett was awarded the George Medal for his part in the incident, while Dinny Lawrence received the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.

  Four more such crimes would occur in the years to follow, two of them ending in the deaths of two hijackers on Australian soil. These, of course, were the days before hijacking would achieve notoriety as a political weapon, particularly in the 1970s throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world. Terrorist groups would use the vulnerability of the airline industry to further their causes, creating wide public awareness as television displayed their often ruthless activities.

  Filmed images of captured hostages being thrown from aircraft onto the tarmac after being shot while negotiations took place were indelibly printed in the public’s mind. Other news images showed hostages being released by a Palestinian group in the Jordanian desert, to be followed by a series of explosions as the three airliners they had hijacked were blown apart.

  All this would have been far from the minds of at least 27 of the passengers aboard Ansett Airlines Flight 232 as it began its descent into Alice Springs on the afternoon of 15 November 1972. Even if any one of them had given it a thought, the likelihood of someone wishing to hijack a Fokker Friendship airliner in one of the most remote areas of Australia would have quickly been dismissed. It was, however, certainly in the mind of passenger number 28, who emerged from the aircraft’s toilet and, pointing a sawn-off rifle and a hunting knife at flight attendant Gai Rennie, in the middle of making her pre-landing announcement, told her: ‘This is a hijack.’

  Brandishing the rifle towards the other flight attendant, Kaye Goreham, the heavily accented passenger, who had been listed on the flight as ‘M. Nelson’, forced both women forward into the narrow cockpit doorway and told Captain Ralph Young he wanted a parachute and jump suit and to be taken 1609 kilometres out in the desert where he would jump from the aircraft.

  At a critical stage of the flight and only minutes away from landing, Young’s first thought was to get the aircraft and its passengers safely on the ground, buying time by telling the man the Fokker Friendship was an unsafe aircraft from which to undertake a parachute jump. Although agitated and appearing nervous, passenger Nelson then accepted Kaye Goreham’s suggestion that they needed to sit down for landing, so the three of them crouched on the galley floor as the Fokker touched down and taxied to a remote part of the Alice Springs airport.

  Then followed four hours of tension while police, who had rushed to the airport and taken up positions within sight of the Fokker, negotiated with the hijacker. Surprisingly, he kept telling them he didn’t want money and repeated that he only wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the desert, surviving as long as he could and then shooting himself. Occasionally he would walk up and down the aircraft’s aisle waving his rifle from side to side while the passengers looked on in a mixture of disquiet and bewilderment, all the time sweating in the 40-degree heat of an Alice Springs afternoon.

  As the hours passed there were several occasions when Young and his first officer, Wal Gowans, believed they had talked the hijacker out of his intentions, but Nelson would invariably always return to his original demands, which had now changed to the provision of a light plane and a parachute. And if he didn’t get them he would start shooting passengers.

  When told both demands would be met Nelson finally agreed to release the passengers, but for Kaye Goreham the drama was far from over. Out on the airfield, Alice Springs Aero Club chief instructor Ossie Watts was preparing one of the club’s aircraft, a six-seater Cessna 206. He had volunteered to fly it with
Constable Paul Sandeman, in plain clothes, posing as navigator. On orders from Nelson, Watts taxied the Cessna to within a few metres of the Fokker and, its engine running, waited. Police, concealing themselves at various parts of the airport, watched as Nelson forced Goreham to jump down from the Fokker with him and marched her in front of him towards the Cessna. The crew of the Fokker quickly closed the aircraft door to prevent the hijacker’s return.

  What happened next would last only a few minutes but would be something those involved would never forget. Suspicious, Nelson shouted over the noise of the Cessna’s engine for Sandeman to get out of the aircraft, telling Goreham to search the policeman while he held the gun to them. As Goreham ‘frisked’ Sandeman, she felt a pistol in his pocket but said nothing.

  ‘Then Paul lunged for the gun,’ Goreham would recount later. ‘I was standing next to him and the hijacker shot his gun and the bullet went through Paul’s hand.’

  Nelson fired again, this time hitting Sandeman in the stomach and the policeman began to stagger away from the gunman towards the Fokker. Goreham, although for seconds remaining frozen with shock, soon began to run after him as the gunman fired more shots in Sandeman’s direction. While Sandeman sought refuge beneath the Fokker, the crew reopened the door and dragged Goreham inside.

  By now other police were racing towards the scene, firing at Nelson as they approached. Watts, who had earlier been handed a pistol by Sandeman, also opened fire. Despite being hit several times the hijacker returned fire while he hid behind a low earth bank in scrub at the edge of the field. Then, in what appeared to be a surrender motion, he held up one arm, but as police approached he turned away, another shot rang out and he fell back. When police reached him they found he had turned his .22 Armalite rifle on himself, firing up under his jaw.