The Lutana Tragedy

At 5.35pm on the evening of 2 September 1948, the ANA DC3 airliner Lutana (pictured above), took off from Archerfield Airport in Brisbane on a routine flight to Sydney. It was carrying 10 passengers and 3 crew, including the pilot, Captain John Drummond. Above Coffs Harbour the captain reported that there was heavy ice on the plane, and was given permission to descend slightly. At 7.56 he reported that he was over Williamtown air base near Newcastle, and after brief further contact at 8.12pm, all looked on track for the expected 8.55pm arrival at Mascot. Except that it never arrived.

Reports of an aircraft heard flying very low off Terrigal in misty rain at around 8.15pm led to initial fears that the Lutana had crashed into the sea. Several RAAF planes and civil aircraft searched the sea without luck the next day. On September 4 an oil slick near Swansea was spotted, lending weight to the theory of a crash at sea.

Among the passengers listed missing was a  Mr Rossiter of 392 Upper Roma St, Brisbane. Melbourne papers listed three Victorians on board, but this did not include Rossiter. Eventually it was revealed that 

Rossiter was Charles John Rossiter, of Burke Road, Hawthorn. But even this was not quite right, as he was actually Charles Thomas Rossiter, eldest son of Herbert and Magdalene Rossiter (Dad's Aunty Madge). Charles was Dad's first cousin, had served in the RAAF during WW2 and was an engineer like his father Herbert. He was still on the electoral roll in Melbourne so may have been living in Brisbane briefly while on business.

Back to the mystery of the plane's whereabouts. On 12.45pm on September 4, burnt-out wreckage was spotted by the captain of a passenger flight near the top of the 4600 foot 'Square Peak Mountain', also known as 'Ben Evers', 20 miles east of the town of Quirindi in New South Wales. This pilot had diverted slightly from his course as he had a hunch that the missing plane might have come to grief in the Barrington Tops area. Further investigative flights confirmed from the visible markings that the wreckage was that of the Lutana and that there was little hope of finding any survivors. A torn-off wing indicated the severity of the impact. It appeared that the plane was only just shy of clearing the mountain, but had struck trees on the peak and plunged 300 feet down the hillside. One of the aircraft's engine was buried into the earth half a mile away. Instruments later revealed that the plane would have been travelling at 150 mph at the time of the crash. Only the tail portion of the plane remained unburnt.

          

Search heardquarters were set up at Wallabadah, 12 miles west of the site, and parties were sent out from there, Nundle, Quirindi and Tamworth, carrying materials to form improvised stretchers in order to bring the bodies down the three miles from the mountain to the closest point reachable by ambulances. The Wallabadah group reached the plane first at 7.30pm on the 4th, and found almost all of the badly-burned bodies in the nose of the plane. The next day, two of the crew were the first bodies to be positively identified, and on the morning of the 6th, the bodies were taken down from the mountain.

Initially authorities were confused as to how the Lutana had ended up in this location, 80 miles off its desired course, as it would have had to have taken a sharp northwest turn from its position over Williamtown. It was suggested its radio and lights might have been lost after being hit by lightning, and that Captain Drummond turned the plane to get away from the storm and find an inland airport to land at, perhaps Tamworth. But this idea was debunked as Tamworth Airport was known to not be open and lit at night. And that the captain in avoiding bad weather would not have headed that far inland.

So attention turned to the possibility of the pilot thinking he was above Williamtown when in fact he was already well off course (by a bearing of 15 degrees). This seemed likely after wrist watches found on the dead suggested the impact had occurred at about 8.15pm – the plane could therefore not have been above Williamtown, 110 miles away, as recently as 7.56. Perhaps Drummond had mistaken the radio transmitter at Tamworth for Williamtown, and beginning a descent brought the plane to grief on the mountain. As far as could be ascertained, the crew were sure of their position at the time, and had either badly miscalculated their position or had taken a deliberate deviation as a result of adverse winds or receiving wrong weather information and planned to navigate by commercial radio signals.

At this time in aviation, planes navigated via radio compass, and on this route should have been on a 'radio beam' all the way. If at any time a pilot finds they are off the beam, they should notify ground control; however there are 'dead spots' in the beam over an airport, and perhaps the captain thought he was in such a spot when reporting to be over Williamtown. On 1 September, the day before the crash,  pilots had been advised that the Newcastle station 2NA would be changing frequency, but the next day another notice advised that it would remain unaltered. The Newcastle station was in the same direction as the Williamtown beacon. Perhaps this latter message had been missed or forgotten, and the pilot was expecting to find 2NA on the new frequency and instead tuned in to the Bathurst station which happened to be very close on the dial, and therefore homed in on the wrong beam. While travelling on this path they would have picked up 2TM Tamworth, heard the station's call sign at 8pm and realised the navigational error. Turning east at this stage to rectify matters would then explain the direction of the impact at the site. Visibility was not great in the area at the time which obviously would not have helped. 

The wreckage of the Lutana as it appeared in the Truth newspaper, 5 September 1948

On 7 September, Charles Thomas Rossiter was one of the first three passengers' bodies to be identified, by his cousin Francis Herbert Rossiter, soldier, of Sydney. His body was returned to Victoria, where he was buried in the Burwood Cemetery on the September 10. 

Also on the 7th, a Coronial inquest was launched at Tamworth, and meanwhile in Parliament the Prime Minister Ben Chifley ordered an inquiry into the tragedy, which was completed in November. Many theories were put forward throughout the duration of the inquiry, but all could only be labelled as speculation. The inquiry found no error or defect in the radio beam. While it was noted that the peak Ben Evers does not appear on aviation charts as a spot height, it lay correctly within its appropriate contour range. Both ANA and the Civil Aviation Department were 'satisfied the inquiry had disclosed no solution to the mystery.' A finding of 'accidental death' was delivered by the District Coroner at the conclusion of the inquest into the deaths of the passengers.

Interestingly just days after the inquiry was concluded, another ANA airliner, the Kurana, crashed into Mt Macedon near Melbourne killing the pilot and one other crew member – miraculously 19 passengers survived. This and another crash in late October (an RAAF plane crashed into a mountain on Lord Howe Island killing seven) heightened concerns that air traffic control on the ground was not keeping pace with the rapid growth in air transport development, and that it relied too much on the human element. Fortunately these were the immediate post-war years which was seeing rapid technological development. In May the RTCA (Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics) in the US had released a report recommending a common air traffic control system be developed including installation of airport surveillance radar and various cutting-edge navigational and communication equipment for aircraft that would improve their capability of landing in poor weather conditions. While these developments would not occur in time to save the Lutana, their eventual implementation would lead to vastly improved safety of air travel in Australia and around the world.

Charles Thomas Rossiter

Epilogue

Charles Rossiter was the twin brother of Grace Brown nee Rossiter, who lived near us in Liston Street, Burwood. Grace lost her husband Keith Brown at 47 years of age just a few years after Charles' death, in 1956. She lived with her and Dad's uncle Arthur Cowan, and I remember visiting them with Mum and Dad a few times.