Australia's worst air crash

[Mike K]

Did anyone see the SBS doco last night detailing the B 17 crash near Mackay in QLD in 1943? 40 US servicemen were killed and one survived . They interviewed aged witnesses and relatives . It was hushed up to preserve the war morale .

They reckon it may have lost an engine, which normally would not mean much but it was heavily loaded, right on the edge of its allowed gross take off weight . The pilot was inexperienced .

The B17 in question was on older model, it had been patched up numerous times and was just about ready to be written off. It had been converted to a transport from a bomber

Dont know if its on I view ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakers_Creek_air_crash

http://www.ozatwar.com/ozcrashes/qld46.htm

[Keith Webb]

Yes I watched it - it was good to see an Australian incident investigated like this although the show itself had a lot of padding I thought.

The B17 3-D model had a totally inaccurate tail, hard to understand how they'd get something like that wrong.

It was good to see the interview with Peter Dunn who has the website Ozatwar. http://www.ozatwar.com

Here's his page on the Bakers Creek crash http://www.ozatwar.com/ozcrashes/qld46.htm

[Andrew]

very interesting reading,
what caught my eye "had been converted into a transport after suffering heavy battle damage in a mission on 25 December 1941"

Andrew

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

At the end of the day, after all the "investigating" it seems that original finding of pilot error still stands. Surprising that there seemed no follow up of the sole survivor, and a missed opportunity with the uniting of the family with the daughter that no one knew about.
From what I have heard, incidents like this through the war were not hushed up so much as dealt with quickly and with little publicity, there was a lot going on at the time.....
Rich.

[motto]

According to one source I looked at, from 1942 until the end of the war American aircraft losses were averaging 170 a day world wide. The USAAF had a massive task to perform and no time to examine events. Clean up and get on with it was the order of the day.

David

[David Dunlop]

Seems the USAAF B-17 fleet was worked hard during the war (with good reason) and the conversion of worn out units to the transport role was quite common. The RCAF Heavy Transport Sqn, based in Ottawa, received their fleet of B-17's directly from the USAAF somewhere south of the border and they were all worn out. They had no end of problems keeping them airborne and I think lost one (disappeared enroute somewhere) from suspected wear and tear issues.

David