The worst transport crashes that shocked Australia
In the wake of the Sydney to Melbourne train derailment, here are some of the worst transport crashes and accidents that changed Australia forever.
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Thousands of Australians are involved in, and lose their lives to, transport-related accidents each year.
Just like the Sydney to Melbourne train derailment at Wallan, there have been a number of significant crashes which have changed Australian history forever.
From the 1989 bus crash in Kempsey, which killed 35 people and injured 41, to a train colliding with a truck – killing 11 and injuring 23 – at Kerang in 2007, here is a list at some of the nation’s worst transport-related incidents.
WORST TRANSPORT-RELATED ACCIDENTS
CAMP MOUNTAIN, QLD – 1947
Queensland’s greatest rail disaster occurred at Camp Mountain in the Samford Vally on May 5, 1947.
It killed 16 and injured 38 – including the driver and a fireman on-board – when a crowded picnic train derailed on a sharp left-hand curve between Ferny Grove and Camp Mountain stations on Dayboro line, which is now closed.
The event, which is still the largest loss of life in a rail accident on the Queensland railway network, occurred about 15km northwest of Brisbane about 9.50am.
Three of the deceased were children Gregory Brown, 9, Michael Kearney, 12, and Trevor Kitchen, 9.
It took more than nine hours to recover bodies from the scene.
The final victim was removed at 7.15pm the same day.
GRANVILLE, NSW – 1977
On January 18, 1977, a crowded commuter train derailed and struck the supports of Bold Street bridge near Granville station in Sydney about 8am.
The bridge collapsed onto two of the train’s passenger carriages, killing 84 people, injuring more than 213 and affecting 1300.
The train was coming from Mount Victoria, in the Blue Mountains, to Sydney and had about 469 passengers by the time it left Parramatta station.
To this day, it remains the worst rail disaster in Australian history and the greatest loss of life in a confined area post-war.
GRAFTON, NSW – 1989
On October 20, 1989, a bus and semi-trailer collided on the Pacific Highway at Cowper.
It happened on a straight stretch of the highway and near Grafton in northern NSW.
It has been recorded as the worst loss of life on Australian roads – killing 21 and injuring 22.
The event happened between 3.50am and 4am when the semi-trailer, carrying a load of tinned fruit juice, veered onto the wrong side of the road and hit a Sunliner Express bus, carrying 45 people.
The driver, who died in the incident, was found to have a high amount of ephedrine in his blood, which is similar in effect to amphetamines.
KEMPSEY, NSW – 1989
Two months on from the horrific accident at Grafton, another bus crashed at Kempsey – killing 35 people, including both drivers, and injuring 41.
The accident occurred on 22 December, 1989, when two at-capacity Denning Landseer tourist coaches, each travelling 100km/h, collided head-on at Clybucca Flat.
The crash happened on the Pacific Highway, just 12km north of Kempsey.
The crash, along with the other at Grafton, led to two inquests by the state coroner, who advised the Pacific Highway be made a dual carriageway from Newcastle to the QLD boarder.
BOONDALL, QLD – 1994
On October 24, 1994, a Wide Bay Tour coach carrying 50 passengers – including 47 war widows from Maryborough – crashed and rolled on the Gateway Motorway.
The event, which killed 12 people and injured 39, occurred about 10.20am as the group head to the Logan Hyperdome.
A coronial inquest established a weld on the lower right steer control rod had broken and the bus did an immediate right-hand turn. It was widely reported the driver was unable to straighten the bus, causing the vehicle to travel across the road and rolling on a centre median strip.
KERANG, VICTORIA – 2007
Eleven people – seven adults and four children – died and 23 were injured when a semi-trailer truck collided with a V/Line passenger train from Swan Hill at the Kerang level crossing on June 5, 2007.
The accident occurred about 1.40pm AEST in Victoria, about 6km north of Kerang in the state’s northwest.
The impact of the collision split the three-carriage train – which had left Swan Hill station 40 minutes earlier with 40 passengers on board – in two.
The shattered remnants of the truck were left at the point of impact.
The regular passenger service, which had left Swan Hill station at 1pm on the day, was scheduled to stop at Kerang about the time of the smash.
The train was scheduled to arrive in Melbourne at 5.09pm.
The incident was the deadliest rail disaster in Australia since 1977, when a crowded commuter train derailed at Granville, in Sydney’s west, killing 84.
MOUNT HOTHAM, VICTORIA – 2005
Three people died on July 8, 2005, when the plane they were travelling in crashed in bad weather while en route to Victoria’s Mount Hotham ski resort.
The people who died were millionaire property developer Brian Ray and his wife, Kathy, and pilot Russell Lee.
The wrecked, burnt plane was found partially buried in snow after losing contact with radio at 5.22pm the same day as it approached Mount Hotham airfield.
MOUNT HOTHAM, VICTORIA – 2013
A 60-year-old man from Euroa died when the light plane he was travelling in to Mangalore crashed near Mount Hotham, in Victoria’s north east, about 8.30am.
The man, retiree Peter Brereton, was on his way back from dropping off spare parts for a helicopter used to fight fires on NSW’s far south coast.
He was an experienced pilot and had served as an operations manager with the Country Fire Authority in northeast Victoria.
While he left Moruya airport at 8.15am and was due to land at Mangalore about 11am, the single-engine plane never made it.
Mr Brereton’s body had to be winched from the crash site.
HAWKESBURY RIVER, NSW – 2017
The New Year’s Eve Sydney Seaplanes crash killed five members of a UK family and the aircraft’s pilot in 2017.
Experienced Canadian-born pilot Gareth Morgan, 44, British multi-millionaire Richard Cousins, 58, his magazine editor fiance Emma Bowden, 48, and her daughter Heather, 11, and Cousins’s sons William, 25, and Edward, 23, all perished in the crash.
The single engine de Havilland Beaver nosedived into the Hawkesbury River at Jerusalem Creek, north of Sydney after mysteriously veering off course.
ORCHARD HILL, NSW – 2018
Two women – one heavily pregnant with twins – died when the vehicles they were travelling collided with an ongoing car which crossed the median strip at Orchard Hill on September 28, 2018.
Belinda Hoang, 17, was an L-plater and driving the Nissan Tiida at the time of the incident.
She was driving with her brother Bronco Hoang, 25, and pregnant sister-in-law Katherine, 23, when 29-year-old Richard Moananu crashed his Mazda into them.
Katherine, her unborn twins and Belinda died at the scene.
The impact forced their car backwards with two other vehicles. An 18-year-old driver suffered minor facial injuries, while the other driver was uninjured.
Mr Hoang was taken to hospital in a critical but stable condition and survived the crash.
HARDEN, NSW – 2019
An eight-year-old boy had his legs crushed and an elderly woman was rushed to hospital with a serious head injury after a bus crashed at Harden, 125 kilometres north west of Canberra, injuring all 28 people on-board.
The bus reportedly blew a tyre on September 27, 2019, causing it to careen off the road.
#UPDATE: Two patients have been airlifted to The Canberra Hospital. Paramedics are attending The Harden Hospital to assist doctors in treating patients and potentially transporting them for further assessment #nswambulance #harden pic.twitter.com/Y09o6Zru4y
— NSW Ambulance (@NSWAmbulance) September 27, 2019
Seven ambulance crews arrived to find the white coach had smashed into a nearby paddock some way away from the road.
Nobody died at the scene.
ANNA BAY, NSW – 2019
Five people died in a freak helicopter accident in NSW on September 6, 2019.
The private Bell UH-1H helicopter crashed into waters off Anna Bay near Port Stephens.
The helicopter was travelling from Brisbane to Bankstown when it disappeared from the Williamtown flight radar about 6.15pm.
Police discovered the tail rotor and the main airframe of the helicopter about 8km south of Fingal Bay. However, there was no significant wreckage.
Pilot David Kerr was on board, as well as Jamie Ogden, Grant Kuhnemann, Jocelyn Villanueva and Gregory Miller.
BELLS RAPIDS, WA – 2019
A driver died after two trains crashed in Western Australia.
The collision happened about 2.30am on December 24, 2019, in Jumperkine in the Avon Valley, about 25 kilometres from Perth CBD.
A #rail emergency has been triggered north-east of #Perth after a freight train was driven into the back of grain train at approx 02:00 today.
— Matteo👨â€ðŸš€Vinci (@matteovinci) December 24, 2019
The crash is in the vicinity of the Bells Rapids tourist site.#transport #safety #accidentinvestigationhttps://t.co/wSLgXxrJW8 pic.twitter.com/47mtYw4dMV
The crash was the result of a Pacific National freight train driving into the back of a grain train, which disrupted all services into the city.
Aerial footage from the crash site showed wreckage strewn across multiple tracks, with rail car standing in the air with the Pacific National locomotive pushed underneath it.
NELSON, VICTORIA – 2020
A Scotch College bus flipped at Nelson, near the South Australian border, injuring a number of people on January 23.
Emergency services were called to the area about 4.30pm after reports of a crash, an Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said.
Six teenagers have been taken to hospital after a bus crashed and rolled at Nelson on the SA/ Victorian border this afternoon pic.twitter.com/TOt2dKkzTj
— Isadora Bogle (@isadorabogle) January 22, 2020
A picture from the scene, tweeted by the ABC’s Isadora Bogle, shows the bus lying on its roof.
Seven students were taken to hospital.
Scotch College principal John Newton said the students were attending the college’s senior and intermediate rowing camp in Nelson.