Lindsay and Marina Kuhrt speak out after family die in plane crash
A grandfather who lost three family members in a triple fatal plane crash has revealed how he will honour their deaths and find some good from the tragedy.
Mackay
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A grieving father wants to lend his voice to education programs for new pilots after his youngest son, daughter-in-law and unborn granddaughter were tragically killed in a plane crash during a storm.
“I’ll do anything,” Calen’s Lindsay Kuhrt said.
“If it stops even one family from going through what we did, it’s a win.”
The Mackay District Senior Sergeant and his wife Marina are still coming to grips with their harsh new reality.
It’s a reality where their youngest son Rhiley, 22, and wife Maree, 24, who was pregnant with their first child Phoebe, only come to life in their memories.
“We are slowly starting to accept that it’s happened, but it’s very difficult,” Lindsay said.
“Instead of losing just one, we’ve lost three … in one fell swoop.”
Their pain is mirrored by Maree’s family, her parents David and Betty Notaras lost their first grandchild.
“That’s been taken away from them,” he said.
And there are daily reminders for the grieving family.
“I hear a light plane now and think, oh that could be Rhiley,” Lindsay said, adding before he realises, oh no it’s not.
“It just sends a shiver.”
‘I wouldn’t give up until I’ve found him’
Rhiley had been flying the couple’s new green and white Piper Cherokee when it crashed halfway up Mount Hector Range during a storm on April 2.
They had flown from Natal Downs Station, near Charters Towers, en route to Lakeside Airpark at Bloomsbury where Marina had been waiting, but they never arrived.
“I watched these clouds just roll up in front of me from where they should have been coming from and thought, that’s not good,” she said.
Lindsay, an experienced police officer who has been involved in search and rescue co-ordination for more than 20 years, had been working when he got a concerned call from his wife that Rhiley and Maree were overdue.
After making a number of inquiries, and when he or Marina couldn’t reach the pair – their messages were sent but not being received – he thought “something’s happened” and activated a search and rescue.
“We’ve spoken to Rhiley before (that) if anything had happened, he knew there was other dirt airstrips between Natal and Bloomsbury,” Lindsay said.
“Rhiley would know … with my search and rescue, I’m a bit like a dog with a bone, once I get going … I don’t like to let go I want to give the family closure.
“Rhiley knows that … if he had to put (the plane) down, can’t get contact, he knows that I wouldn’t give up until I’ve found him.”
Despite being a concerned father, Lindsay said he had to keep everything together as he focused on his policing duties and “do what I need to do”.
“I had to fight those emotions to remain calm enough just to continue to operate,” he said, before he was able to hand it over to AMSA’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and head straight to Bloomsbury.
“By that time, they were hours overdue.
“Unfortunately when you get an overdue aircraft, it’s not like an overdue car which can break down.
“When you’ve got a missing aircraft, 99 per cent of the time you know what the outcome is going to be.”
After a sleepless night for the family searchers found a plane wreckage on April 3.
Lindsay had been at Proserpine when his worst fears were officially confirmed, it was his son’s plane and it was a fatal crash.
When he returned home to break the news to Marina, Rhiley’s four-year-old daughter Bailey, who lives with them, had been with her at the top of the stairs and said, “Granddad didn’t bring daddy and Ree back.”
“Granddad can fix most things, she knew me as Mr Fix-it … I couldn’t fix that,” he said.
And although she understood that dad wasn’t coming home, Marina said it did not stop the heartbreaking questions like “why did they have to die?”.
‘If I can help prevent one life being lost’
Rhiley’s love of planes began at two years old when the family had been living at Birdsville.
“He used to sit … and he’d watch the planes … wouldn’t miss a plane, as soon as he’d hear them he was out there,” Marina said.
The couple believed the storm was the main reason for the crash and not that he held a restricted licence, which they only learned after his death.
“Yes the licence … will be an issue in the investigation … but it’s not the reason,” Lindsay said.
“Far more experienced pilots than Rhiley have met the same fate flying into inclement weather, which this is a classic case of.”
He hoped some good could come out of his tragedy through helping others.
Lindsay said he had spoken to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau asking to be involved in any type of education program or course for inexperienced pilots stemming from the investigation into his son’s fatal crash.
“I’d like to find some way of preventing this from ever happening again,” he said.
“And if ATSB had any programs that could be linked to this, I’d be happy to be involved … in any way, shape or form to try and prevent another family going through the same as what we’ve gone through this last month.”
The same invitation would be extended to Civil Aviation Safety Authority, he said.
Lindsay had also reached out to his son’s old training ground, the Darling Downs Aero Club, asking to be involved in any aviation safety programs.
“If I can help prevent one life being lost that’s a win,” he said.
Saying goodbye
Loved ones farewelled Rhiley and Maree at a moving funeral service on April 24 at Mount Gravatt with up to 900 in attendance and more than 1500 watching online.
It was a moment that really drove it home for Lindsay and Marina that their son was gone.
In his eulogy Lindsay said Rhiley “came into this world … at the same rate at which he lived life, a million miles an hour”.
Marina said he had loved to make others laugh, even as a child tipping a bowl of spaghetti on his head, and he was “a leader among his friends, whether good or bad”.
She said she missed his energetic “life force” when he would roll into town, eager to do as much as possible.
For Lindsay it was having chats with his son about his job as a station manager and the plans he had for the role.
The youngest of three – and survived by Beccarah, 26, and Brenton, 25, – Rhiley first met Maree at a rodeo
“All five foot nothing of her, getting on a … junior bull and even though she was little she was a ton of heart,” Lindsay said.
Both had been in dark place in their lives, and they helped each other through their troubled time.
She calmed him and he brought out the confidence in her.
The birth of his first child Bailey had also forced him to “lift his game”.
“They really kicked some goals,” Lindsay said.
“In the short time that they were together they lived, and they achieved so much,” Marina said.
Lindsay said he went from being a ringer to taking on a station manager role.
“But that’s Rhiley all over, he decided he was going to do something, he was going to do it … very determined,” Marina said.
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