scone.com.auRouchel Call for Missing Plane
LAST night Terry Wright took a call from a Rouchel resident with information about the Cessna which went missing in the Barrington in 1981.
A Police briefing fom the 1981 search.
Terry Wright was also the person who took the call from police the night the plane went missing to initiate a search and has followed the development of the search over three decades.
He has since used his aviation experience and collaborated with others to reassess all of the transcripts between Sydney flight centre and the pilot and the radar positions for both Sydney and Williamtown.
From their painstaking analysis they developed a theory that the plane had been on the western side of the Great Dividing Range near Scone, instead of the eastern side as had initially been suspected; it became known as the ‘Scone theory’ and is the basis for the search beginning today.
“A gentleman from over your way also rang me to indicate to me that a person who used to work for him, who has now passed, had reported to him a while a go that on that night he heard an aircraft go over and it was in an area called Rouchel,” said Mr Wright.
“And I said well almost three and a half years ago we were looking at another report that from a lady in Upper Rouchel about the aircraft and it is consistent with what the team have indicated as to where the pilot would have turned heading back, because he wouldn’t have turned very tightly with all that head wind he would have had to have turned at a very slow pace and they put him pretty well flying over that road,” he said.
“He seemed to feel relieved that he had not wasted my time by ringing and I certainly didn’t think that, in fact it builds on the only credible evidence we have of a sighting on the western side.
“There were a lot of reports at the time of sightings of the missing plane and a lot of them were aircraft looking for the missing plane, but when the police sent me the reports from the Sydney flight centre all the aircraft were either directly over the Great Dividing Range or on the eastern side, when at the time he was on the western side,” he said.
“So I said to police how can you take that information on board when in fact your own radar reports coming through from Sydney flight centre shows him on the western side and so they then discounted all of those other reports,” said Terry Wright.
Terry estimated the missing plane was only minutes away from the Scone airport and reflects on how Col Pay, a renowned Scone based pilot, may have been able to help the pilot if he had known what was happening at the time.
“The pilot was so close to you guys in Scone,” he said.
“And I think if Mr Pay had received a telephone call and said ‘can you get some lights out there for ’em’, and knowing Col would have done everything possible to get that aircraft safely on the ground.
“A telephone call to Col could have changed everything, because I don’t think you would find a more dedicated person to aviation than Col.
“He asked for support when he started losing his instruments and that’s the other thing that irks me is that he asked for support and they didn’t fully give it; and the same circumstances could happen again tonight and that is fairly worrying.
“He didn’t know until they informed him, that he was on the western side, so why did they turn the lights on at East Maitland airport, when in he was actually at Scone nearly 80 kilometres away,” Terry Wright said.
The area to be searched this weekend is as a result of Terry’s report and he believes if the plane is found the evidence will still exist to piece together what happened on that icy night.
“The instrument panel on the plane, even after 35 years, you’d still be able to see those settings so once the plane is found it won’t be that difficult to piece together what happened,” he said.
“I think he would have had great difficulty in the plane that night with all of the conditions and I feel for him he probably even until the last second felt the responsibility for everything that was happening,” he said.
“All I can say to the guys doing the search this weekend is ‘good on ya’ I know the guys and their background who are doing the search and the areas they have come up with I think are spot on,” Terry Wright said.
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