“Into Oblivion” details the disappearance of Australian National Airways’ Avro 10 tri-motor “Southern Cloud” in 1931 and the subsequent discovery of its wreckage in 1958. Macarthur gives great background into the airline’s history, from when it was set up by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm to when it shut down not long after the Southern Cloud disappeared. He lays out the events that lead up to the Southern Cloud’s disappearance and then describes how the wreckage was discovered, the limited investigation that was performed and the questions left unanswered. He also provides some possible scenarios that could explain how the accident occurred and whether it was survivable.

There is also coverage of various anniversary events that have occurred in more recent times while the appendices contain four documents written in the 1930s, including:

• A review of flying the Avro Ten
• An journalist’s report documenting the experience of flying from Melbourne to Sydney with ANA
• An article on “blind flying” written by the pilot shortly before his death
• A journalist’s report on his experience flying with Kingsford Smith in the search for the Southern Cloud.

The only niggling item I encountered was an occasional repetition of some facts or comments that wasn’t really necessary as they’d only recently been raised. It was clear that the sections had been written separately and then linked together without “blending” them and removing duplications. Fortunately there were only a couple of these instances and they weren’t a major annoyance.

All up, I really enjoyed this book and have no hesitation recommending it for anyone interested in learning more about Australia’s first major airline disaster. Not simply a dry repetition of the facts, “Into Oblivion” engages the reader and is a pleasure to read.

Suffice to say, I submitted a comment to the newspaper:

Hi,

Is Paul Bibby trying to imply that RAAus is the reason for the increase in accidents this year? An interesting concept given that the aircraft involved in the 4 most recent crashes were in no way RAAus aircraft but were, in fact, covered by CASA and their maintenance, monitoring and training regimes (2 x Cessna 172s, 1 x Lake Buccanneer and a crop duster). Further, the two mid-air collisions in 2008 (Moorabbin and Bankstown) both involved VH registered aircraft that were covered by CASA, not RAAus.

So, while over half the fatalities were in the 0 – 2250 category, how many were actually weighing less than 544kg and thus governed by RAAus instead of CASA? It is also important to compare the number of fatalities against the number of hours flown. It may be that there are more deaths because people are flying more but that, over all, we’re having fewer accidents per thousand hours, etc. Paul’s report doesn’t supply that information.

Fewer regulations are not necessarily indicative of a lax safety attitude. In fact, fewer regulations that are easier to learn & follow often lead to a safer environment. It seems of late that CASAs view on air safety is that we’d be safest if no-one actually flew. RAAus has been working hard to safely get more people flying once again and it is no surprise that the Recreational space is growing while the CASA controlled flight training environments are shrinking.

The increase in aviation related deaths, while still tiny compared to Australia’s annual road toll, is a trigger that we should be reviewing our procedures & processes in general. From this review we can determine where it may be necessary to educate to address common factors or revise procedures.

Combining information about increased fatalities with references to RAAus having fewer regulations and wanting to increase its area of control only serves to make me wonder about Paul’s motives in writing this story.

Cheers,

Grant

The second accident was a crop duster crash that killed the pilot & sole occupant. No real news available on that one as yet.

Four accidents almost as many days may not seem like much to some but in Australia that’s a fairly high number. While there may be the odd accident here and there, lately there seem to have been a few (mid air at Moorabbin in August, mid air near Bankstown in December, other incidents in between, now these two and the ones around Christmas Day). I don’t have links to all the details at the moment but the number of incidents does seem to be on the rise.

While these reports are from general media and may not have all the facts, initial review leads to speculation that the first may have been “scud running” due to “press-on-itis” and the second may have been due to low flying. If so, it makes these accidents doubly tragic as they could have been avoided.

It’s important to read and learn from the ATSB safety reports as well as those from the FAA. Typically in aviation you don’t get a chance to learn from your mistakes (many being fatal) so it’s important to learn from the mistakes of others.

I’m counting on good flight training (practical & theoretical), learning from studying accident reports and generally asking myself “How will this look in the news?” to help me learn good judgment when flying. Of course, I’m really safe in my flying at the moment – I haven’t got the time or money to go flying – small consolation…