A year after the fatal Rossair plane crash near Renmark, the victims’ families remember their loved ones
A YEAR ago, three families were devastated as a light Rossair plane fell from the sky and crashed near Renmark. Now the loved ones of the three pilots killed have spoken of the day their lives changed forever.
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- Inquiry won’t have answers until late this year or the next
- Three dead after light plane crash near Renmark Aerodrome
- One of three pilots killed in tragedy was about to retire
- Rossair chief pilot Martin Scott farewelled at memorial service
A YEAR ago, three families were torn apart as a light Rossair plane fell from the sky and crashed near Renmark. Now the families of the victims have spoken of the day their lives changed forever.
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AS Terri Hutchinson stood in her living room and flicked on the television on the evening of May 30, 2017, she saw a news report about a serious plane crash in Renmark.
She knew her fiancee Martin Scott was flying that day but didn’t know where.
As chief pilot of charter company Rossair, Martin was often in the air, heading to various destinations, so it wasn’t unusual for Terri to not know his exact whereabouts.
She wasn’t alarmed by the report though, and the thought that Martin could have been involved never crossed her mind at the time – after all, like most people tended to think, these kinds of things only happened to others.
But Terri would soon learn her life would never be the same again.
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the crash that killed her 48-year-old partner as well as Civil Aviation Safety Authority officer Stephen Guerin, 56 and experienced pilot Paul Daw, 65, Terri has opened up about the day she lost the love of her life and father to their nine-year-old son Andy.
The three men died when their nine-seat aircraft came down in scrubland 4km west of the Renmark Aerodrome about 4.30pm on May 30, 2017.
Terri, 50, said she remembered “very vividly” the last morning she saw Martin at their Belair home before he went off to work on that fateful day.
“We ate breakfast together and then sat on the balcony chatting,” she recalled.
“He told me how much he missed me on the nights when I was working and he said that he was really looking forward to getting home that night so that we could share an evening and night together.
“We chatted about our impending holiday and wedding and how excited we were to see his dad’s face when we told him that we weren’t just going out for lunch but that he would be attending our (surprise) wedding.
“Martin kissed me and told me how much he loved me and then he walked out of the door and never came home.”
Terri said the last time she heard from Martin was at about 2pm when he sent her a text message to tell her he was going flying and would try to be home in time to attend Andy’s basketball game.
“I sent him a couple of messages at around 4pm but got no reply which was unusual,” she said.
“I got home and cooked dinner and still received no response to my messages.
“After I had fed Andy I did something I had never done in the five months we had lived in our house – I turned on the TV.
“The news was on and I could see there had been a plane crash at Renmark.
“I hadn’t asked Martin where he was going so I wasn’t really too worried to begin with.”
Terri said as more time passed without any word from her fiancee, she started getting “niggling doubts” and messaged one of Martin’s colleagues to ask if she knew his whereabouts.
After several messages back and forth, she spoke to the then-Rossair chief executive Warren Puvanendran.
“He told me there had been an accident and it was serious,” she said.
“I was in a state of total panic by this stage but remained calm as I asked him straight out if Martin was dead.
“He replied ‘yes, yes he is’.”
Terri said “never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how words could affect me”.
“I felt instantly as though an icy band surrounded my heart,” she said.
I felt instantly as though an icy band surrounded my heart — Terri Hutchinson
“I was shaking and felt sick.
“At the same time I was galvanised into action and set about making the necessary, but terrible, phone calls to his family and mine.
“To this day I still think about those phone calls, particularly the one to his dad.
“They were very close and I knew that the call I had to make was about to totally devastate his life.”
Next, she had to wake up Andy and deliver the heartbreaking news about his father.
“I sat next to him on the bed and watched him sleeping, knowing that I was about to wake him up to a different world,” Terri said.
“He was only nine years old and it seemed so unfair – Things like this were supposed to happen to other people, not us.”
Two days later, Rossair staff returned Martin’s car to their house and Terri said she “didn’t even think to mention this to Andy”.
“I picked him up from school and when we pulled into our driveway and he saw the car he said ‘Oh my God Mum – Dad is home! He didn’t die in that plane crash!’
“I felt so terrible – I should have warned him.”
Terri then threw herself into the mounds of paperwork that came with a premature death.
“It seemed to go on and on for months on end,” she said.
“I truly felt that I was unable to even start the grieving process.
“It certainly didn’t help when we were told by the Coroner that funerals were unable to take place until all scattered body parts had been DNA tested so that they could be linked to the appropriate body.
“This process was to take two months and I found it very difficult to deal with – I felt as though I was in a state of constant anxiety with my heart racing, feeling sick, unable to sleep and unable to eat.”
On July 15, Martin was farewelled at a funeral service in the Heysen Chapel at Centennial Park, Pasadena.
The ceremony was live-streamed to friends and family in England – Martin and Terri’s home country.
“Martin was an exciting and demanding man and I loved him deeply, to the exclusion of all else except Andy,” Terri said.
Terri said she knew there was no point in having regrets but it was “hard not to contemplate the last few weeks prior to his death and not wish that I could have done things differently”.
“I know that all of us realise that any day could be our last, however we don’t believe it could really happen,” she said.
“We were both working very hard and I generally worked six night shifts a week in an attempt to help us get ahead.
“If I had known what was to come I would have said ‘to hell with the money’ and spent those nights in our bed together.”
Terri said she was “amazed, shocked and moved” by the support she and Andy received from the community after the crash.
“The level of initial support given to us made such a difference and really raised my faith in humanity,” she said.
“Strangers brought us food and offered babysitting, among other things.
“I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to you all – You all went out of your way to help a complete stranger through a truly terrible time.”
It soon became apparent to Terri that, despite living in Australia for 30 years, it was time to move back home to England to be closer to family.
She and Andy flew out at end of last month.
“The last day (in Adelaide) was so emotional for me,” Terri said.
“I felt as though I was abandoning the memory of Martin by leaving the house which we had just bought and loved.
“I stood for the last time on our balcony and sobbed my heart out.”
But having been back in the UK for about a month, Terri said she knew she made the right decision to move.
“I am going to do a law degree and specialise in veterinary, medical and aviation litigation, and Andy is going to go to bingo with his grandma,” she said.
“We still miss Martin every single minute of every single day, but at least I can see a tiny chink of hope for the future now.”
Terri has vowed to return to Australia for the inquest once that occurs “so that I can be assured in my own mind that all aspects of what led up to this terrible tragedy have been looked into”.
“As the only widow with a pilot’s licence, I feel that it is my job to fight to ensure that our men get a fair and thorough investigation,” she said.
A larger than life ‘aviation fanatic’
PAUL Daw was two days away from retiring as a chief pilot at Bruce Hartwig Flying School.
But the experienced pilot was not ready to fully surrender his wings and had planned to take on a few casual shifts with Rossair during his retirement.
“He had a massive passion for flying and probably wanted to fly more than when he was with us,” Parafield-based Bruce Hartwig Flying School chief executive David Blake said.
Mr Daw, 65, was Hartwig Air’s chief pilot, which was separate to the school, and supervised charter flights flown by young pilots around South Australia for nearly two years.
He also flew across remote South Australia on delivery flights. But Mr Blake said his “greatest asset” was that he was “a phenomenal mentor”.
“Most of the students wanted to emulate his career,” Mr Blake said.
“He was busy but Paul always found the time. He simply dreamt of being a pilot and passing his knowledge on. He was a larger than life character ... a very enthusiastic man.”
Mr Blake described Mr Daw as an “aviation fanatic” whose interest in the field started long before his 40-year career.
“He and his brother (Nigel Daw) were tied at the umbilical cord with the same passion for aviation,” Mr Blake said.
Before working at Hartwig Air, Mr Daw worked with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and flew with KLM in the Netherlands, as well as Rossair.
The father of three, who was an avid photographer, was a curator at the South Australian Aviation Museum, where his brother is a librarian, and had helped facilitate many rare aircraft to display.
SA Museum president David Byrne said Mr Daw’s passion and dedication to the museum was sorely missed.
“He was just so enthusiastic about everything aviation ... you would be hard pressed to find anyone more enthusiastic about aviation,” Mr Byrne said.
“If he wasn’t flying a plane, he was photographing them or working on preserving the history of planes.” Mr Byrne said Mr Daw would volunteer hours scouring for aviation relics to put on show at the museum.
“The excitement he would get when he found something historical, he was like a kid with a new toy,” Mr Byrne said.
“He would go out of his way to help people in other museums, he was very helpful.”
Mr Daw’s photographs over the years are often shared with aviation enthusiasts.
In 2002, he was praised for his skills as a pilot for safely landing a replica of the famous Southern Cross aircraft with eight people on-board when the plane’s undercarriage snapped.
Mr Daw, a co-pilot and six passengers were forced to circle above Outer Harbor for 90 minutes to burn up fuel.
The $5 million aircraft was forced to make a belly flop landing but everyone walked away without serious injuries.
Mr Blake said the fatal Rossair plane crash that killed Mr Daw, chief pilot Martin Scott and CASA officer Stephen Guerin was a “double hurt” to the Bruce Hartwig community, which also worked with Mr Guerin over the years.
“That day we heard the plane crash and got a call that Paul may be involved,” Mr Blake said. “We were waiting around nervously until the confirmation came at midnight. Next morning we heard that Steve was deceased too ... that was double shock to us.”
Mr Blake paid tribute to Mr Daw, who was “always humble, alway helpful”.
“He came to me saying he wanted to retire to spend more time with his grandkids,” Mr Blake said.
“He was a mild person but was strong in his beliefs.”
Mr Daw is survived by his wife Anne, daughters Emma and Rachel, son Simon and brother Nigel.
— Josephine Lim, Jordanna Schriever
Routine training flight in clear blue skies ends in tragedy for three pilots
JUST after 4.15pm on May 30, 2017, Cessna VH-XMJ took off into the clear skies above Renmark Airport on a routine training flight.
Less than two minutes later, the plane plunged nose first into scrubland 3km from where it took off, killing three experienced pilots on board.
About 75 minutes before the crash, the Cessna Conquest 441 and its crew left Adelaide Airport headed towards Renmark.
In the right front control seat, Rossair charter airline chief pilot Martin Scott, 48, was evaluating older but equally experienced pilot Paul Daw, 65, who was working his way back into the airline’s roster.
In the back passenger seat, directly behind the pilots, Civil Aviation Safety Authority officer Stephen Guerin, 56, kept a watchful eye on the evaluation.
The Cessna left Adelaide just after 3pm and climbed to about 5200m with a bearing northeast towards Renmark.
On approach to the Riverland town, the crew was cleared to descend but also informed air traffic control they would be conducting practice manoeuvres above Renmark Aerodrome.
OzRunways, a program running on an iPad in the plane’s cabin, provided updates every five seconds of the plane’s position and altitude.
The results from the program showed the plane practising holding patterns before circling the aerodrome and landing on runway 25.
The flight was on the ground in Renmark for a matter of minutes before taking off.
From the front of a nearby bodyworks shop, mechanic Jason Gordon watched as the plane set its course for a return to Adelaide.
“I was delivering a car to a wheel aligner so I was heading out to hop in the car, which was parked out the front ready for delivery,” Mr Gordon said.
“We barely see planes so that was why it caught my eye.
“I was out there at the same time and saw it swinging across in front of me.
“The only thing that caught my attention, other than it being quite low, was that it was a very powerful plane.
“I looked up and saw it and watched it turn off towards Adelaide before jumping in the car and leaving.
“I didn’t find out what happened until the next day and it was all over the news.”
In the air for less than two minutes after taking off, the Cessna stopped transmitting its location and altitude at 4.17pm.
The wreckage of the Cessna was found several hours after the crash, 228m from its last known location. All three crew members died on impact.
ATSB crash investigators found that the plane had plummeted to the ground nose first and facing back towards Renmark Airport.
Despite jet fuel covering the scene, the plane did not burn after it landed.
Almost a year on from the crash – the equal worst since eight people were killed on-board Whyalla Airlines flight 904 on May 31, 2000 – investigators have yet to release the cause.
— Mitch Mott
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