FLYING BOAT WRECKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23690, 23 December 1938, Page 10

FLYING BOAT WRECKED

PLAYTHING OF DARWIN GALE DASHED FROM MOORINGS TO ROCKS (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Dec. 16. The Empire flying boat Coorong, valued at £60,000 and loaded with three tons of Christmas mails for Australia and New Zealand, was swept ashore and wrecked by an 80-miles-an-hour gale which swept Darwin harbour. • Mechanics and townspeople worked heroically as the Coorong was pounded on the rocks, and were able to save every bag of mail and prevented the Coorong from becoming a total loss. The boat will be dismantled where it lies and shipped to England for repair. The engines have been removed from the ruined hull, and a special squad of mechanics sent from Sydney will be engaged for a month in dismantling the other parts and placing them in crates for shipment to Short Brothers’ factory at Rachester, England, where it was built, to be reconstructed.

The Coorong, which was under the command of Captain Lester Brain, flying superintendent of Qantas Empire Airways, was riding at its moorings when the gale sprang up. The night crew of engineers were servicing the aircraft at the time, but they were unable to start the engines and taxi the flying boat to safety. They could only make vain attempts to hold the flying boat into the wind with, its giant rudder. The Coorong was blown a quarter of a mile to jagged rocks at the bottom of a cliff. An exceptionaly high tide and huge waves lifted the boat almost to the cliff top, 20 feet above low-water mark.

The service crew fought desperately to hold off the deadweight of the fully-laden boat as the rocks gouged the bottom of the hull from nose to stern. The wind and waves lifted her almost out of the water and dropped her on the rocks with deafening crashes, each of which tore plates of metal from the hull. The starboard wing was buried into the cliffside, and the tail swung inshore, burying the starboard tail plane and elevator into the cliff wall, almost tearing them away from the base. The float at the wing-tip pounded on a jetty and collapsed into the cowling of the outer right motor. The float saved the four engines, none of which was damaged, for it took the shocks as the wing was lifted and dropped on the jetty. Water flooded the holds where the mail was stacked, the waves swirling three feet deep through all the front compartments. Realising that the situation was hopeless as the boat drifted nearer the rocks, the service crew abandoned their efforts to start the motors. They climbed through the mooring hatch to the wing top and fought to hold the boat clear. But it was a forlorn hope. They abandoned it, and began salvaging the mail from the holds. Most of it was stored in the upper deck and was carried undamaged along the wing to the cliff top by a relay of men. Before the wind dropped, which was only 10 minutes after the boat went ashore, most of the mail was rescued and was piled on a roadway skirting the cliff top. Working feverishly under the glare of powerful arc lights from the nearby jetty, the men ignored the danger of the boat collapsing and crushing them beneath it. Walking through water up to their waists, they removed every fitting possible. When the mail was salvaged, post office officials, using matches for lights, made a close check of the bags and found that the whole consignment had been saved. The moorings which the Coorong was using were those originally laid down several hundred yards from the shore before the flying boat service began last July. Wet season moorings to safeguard the boats from south-easterly gales were laid down on the opposite side of the harbour several weeks ago, but have not yet been used. Captain Brain said that no blame for the accident could be placed on the moorings. The mooring line snapped, not the mooring anchor. “ It. should be realised that the present plans for a base at Darwin to disembark passengers and mails which are late m being provided and are urgently required, would not have made any difference to this accident,” said Captain Brain. “ Darwin is probably the most important air base between Southampton and Sydney, but it presents probably the greatest difficulties by its rise and fall of tide. A sheltered breakwater, within which the flying boats could be moored, would be most desirable, and no doubt when the full importance of the Empire mail scheme is acknowledged some start on the work will be made. But the construction of a breakwater for the boats is not part of the plans for a base, which have been drawn up so far, and have been approved, and on which work has not yet begun.”