De Havilland Dragon - Accidents and Incidents

Accidents and Incidents

• On 1 July 1935, G-ADED of Railway Air Services crashed on take-off from Ronaldsway Airport, Isle of Man injuring all seven people on board. The aircraft, which was operating a scheduled passenger flight from Ronaldsway to Ringway Airport, Manchester, Lancashire via Squires Gate Airport, Blackpool and Speke Airport, Liverpool, was destroyed in the subsequent fire.

• On 26 March 1936, G-ACAP of Commercial Air Hire crashed near Lyndhurst, Hampshire, England killing all five on board. The aircraft had flown from Croydon Airport and was carrying out military co-operation work around Southampton. Commercial Air Hire had a contract to fly at night to give searchlight crews practice at locating aircraft.

• On 1 October 2012, a privately owned 1934 British de Havilland DH.84 Dragon 2, registration VH-UXG, named Riama (pictured) went missing in bad weather on a flight from the Norra-Aus Fly-In air show near Monto, Queensland to Caboolture, also in Queensland. On 3 October 2012, after an extensive search involving 15 helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft, the plane was found near Borumba Dam by Queensland Police. All six occupants (the pilot, his wife and four other passengers) were killed in the impact. The aircraft – which was cleared to fly only in VFR (visual flight rules) conditions – issued a distress call that was picked up at around 1:00 p.m. in which the 68-year-old pilot said he needed assistance positioning himself. He told air traffic controllers he had flown into clouds, didn’t know his location and needed help. He activated his emergency non-GPS beacon at around 1:30 p.m., before contact with the plane was lost around 2:00 p.m. It was thought that the plane ran out of fuel or flew into the ground after becoming lost in low and heavy rain clouds west of the Sunshine Coast late on Monday. The Dragon's crash site was discovered on the third day of search, in a heavily forested and hilly site in the Lake Borumba area, about 25 km west of Imbil. The pilot, Des Porter (aged 68) had survived a 1954 crash (at age 11) near Brisbane in the same model of plane. His father and an older brother died in that 1954 accident. He found a similar aeroplane some 50 years later in a hangar, disassembled, and restored it. The tail section of VH-UXG included parts from another DH.84 aircraft, previously owned by his father, which was destroyed in an earlier 1952 non-fatal crash landing at Archerfield Aerodrome in Brisbane. The aircraft was named 'Riama' after an Australian World War One pilot, and had been rebuilt by aviation specialist Mothcair. It was based at Murwillumbah Airport in northern New South Wales. Mothcair had been looking for a buyer, and Des Porter became a sponsor. It was reconstructed by northern NSW vintage aviation specialists, Greg and Nick Challinor, who said the restoration, completed in 2002, took four years. The cost was said to be "a lot more than A$100,000." This bi-plane was one of the last four Dragons still flying out of 202 that were built.