Flashback: Plane crash in Botany Bay, all dead, frogmen in heartbreak search

The year was December 1961. Explosion theory surmised -- plane blew up. Or was it because heavy turbulence with bad weather intervened? Housewife says the plane was “a ball of fire high in the sky.”

Torn bodies and wreckage of the Viscount airliner which disappeared over Sydney in a storm last night were found in Botany Bay today.

All 15 aboard – 12 men and three women – were killed. It is believed the plane blew up as it crashed into the sea.

First clue to the crash area came shortly before 7am when a red aircraft cushion was sighted, floating in a long oil slick a mile and half off Bunnerong.

The huge search, which got under way at dawn, soon produced grim, pathetic evidence of the disaster.

Scraps of clothing, Christmas toys, plastic dolls and a brief case were brought to a search headquarters hastily set up on the bay foreshores.

The Ansett-ANA aircraft … plunged into Botany Bay a few minutes after take-off from Sydney Airport at 7.20pm. But it was not until nearly 12 hours later that positive evidence of the fate of the aircraft was discovered.

The tangled wreckage of the Viscount.

A Navy diver went down to the wreck in shallow water 400 yards off Kurnell. The wide area over which the crash remnants were discovered strengthened the explosion theory.

For three hours police searched the beach, gathering human remains and plane wreckage.
Many were visibly affected by their grim task. A RAAF crash boat … had found … several bodies floating nearby.

A big section of the plane’s fuselage was located and marked by a buoy, three-quarters of a mile west of Kurnell wharf in the shallow water and mud. Bodies in the main section of the plane were dismembered.

The aircraft plunged to its doom during the height of a fierce electrical rainstorm which blanketed the four quadrants of the airport area at the time of take-off.

Grim find: A tug comes across an oil slick from the wrecked plane. (Newspaper photo)

Experienced pilots believe the storm could have affected the aircraft’s altimeters.

This could have misled the Viscount’s pilot in estimating his height above sea-level. If the aircraft struck the water at 400mph it would have exploded.

The plane had been given the alternate route to Canberra to bypass the thunderstorm.

It flew north-east and banked left. The Air Traffic Control issued a new route to Canberra and this was acknowledged by the captain. The aircraft was not heard of again.

Several wives, stricken with grief, were put under sedation by doctors.

Mrs W Brook, Lane Cove, said she saw a huge “ball of flame” flash in the sky about 7.30pm. “I looked at the sky. There appeared to be a huge ball of fire flashing across. After a few minutes it seemed to dive out of sight.”

A full Civil Aviation Department technical inquiry was already under way.

The plane crash that still lives with me

Frank Morris says the plane that crashed “still lives with me.”
“It’s 61 years since the crash took place in Botany Bay, Sydney.
It is 61 years since my wife and I were married.
It had rained for two weeks and ended on the night of the disaster.
The plane crash is something which has lived with me a long time. We moved into an apartment that was only about two kilometres from Sydney Airport.

<< Adapted by Frank Morris of Sun’s leading story of Friday, December 1, 1961.

Search For Crash Plane In Botany Bay (1961)