Essendon Fields tragedy: Residents recall airfield’s grim past after horror DFO plane crash

KATH Hutchings still remembers the fatal Essendon plane crash many years before today’s. It was 1978: she was watching The Sullivans at the time, writes Patrick Carlyon.

• Golfers named as plane crash victims
• Five dead in Essendon plane crash
• News pictures: Plane crash tragedy
• Doomed DFO pilot ‘a great guy’
• ‘It was an enormous fireball’

KATH Hutchings still remembers the fatal Essendon plane crash many years before Tuesday’s fireball. It was 1978: she was watching The Sullivans at the time.

On Tuesday morning, her first thought was for her children: for the two who work at DFO, where a B200 King Air plane exploded about 9am, and for her son working at a construction site across the Tullamarine Freeway, about 100 metres from the smoke cloud.

The roaring flames have been doused now, yet the air still reeks of burning.

“It’s just so sad for all the families,” Hutchings says.

She is among the locals drawn to the spot. Many of them recall the Gulle family of Matthews Ave, Airport West — the mum, grandmother and four kids killed in their home almost 40 years ago.

The memory of the Gulles — and the tale of dad coming home from the farm to nothing — is enshrined around here.

Hutchings poses the question Premier Daniel Andrews will soon face. Should Essendon Airport now be closed?

ESSENDON AIRPORT’S FUTURE IN SPOTLIGHT AMID OVERDEVELOPMENT FEARS

Police forensic crews remove a body from the plane that crashing into the DFO. Picture: Tony Gough

Moments after a plane crashed after leaving Essendon Airport. Picture Alex Coppel.

Forensic crews remove a body from the plane. Picture: Tony Gough

Others, however, are still grappling with the present. It is two hours since what was supposed to be a routine departure from runway 17 at 8.58am.

Dozens of witnesses describe a “fireball” and an “explosion”. They reach for the closest comparison — a bomb — and some add “atomic” to emphasise the bang.

Michael Howard, a plumber, was on a worksite balcony. Distracted by the whirr of engines, he looked up to see a blue and white flash of metal.

A plane was too close to the DFO billboards. “I thought, ‘That’s strange, why’s it’s so low?’. The next second I hear this massive explosion.”

It was “like something out of a movie” — except that you don’t shake at the cinema.

Ash Mayer, a DFO worker, was closer, about 100 metres away. His car shook in the blast; his first thought was of a bomb. He tried to help, but he could not get close to the inferno: “You could just feel it from a mile away.”

Staff from Spotlight after the tragedy. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Grace Martin, a Nick Scali employee, was even closer. She was having a coffee when she heard a strange noise. She estimates the plane “straight over the top of me” was rattling about one metre above the shopping centre roof line.

She cannot recall what she thought, but her “heart almost jumped through my throat. I didn’t know what was happening, to be honest”, she says.

Martin did the only sensible thing. She ran for her life.

She left the DFO yesterday as the Salvation Army turned up for traumatised witnesses.

They won’t reach everyone: drivers flooded radio airwaves.

The unspoken assumption was immediate: as bad as it was, it could have been worse.

What if the plane had crashed after the DFO had opened? Or if it had crashed 50 metres to the south, where freeway extension works begin early each day and peak-hour traffic flows?

Bystanders yesterday pointed out a massive crane by the road’s edge.

“It will start up again,” Hutchings says, speaking of historical debates about the merits of Essendon Airport.

Pilot Max Quartermain.

Three of the men who were killed in the plane crash: Greg DeHaven. Russell Munsch and Glenn Garland.

She has lived on both sides of the freeway, through the Gulle tragedy and protracted campaigns to close the airport. In 2007, a failure to block the approval of the Essendon Fields development appeared to end the public discord.

The airport has long serviced corporate, commercial and charter plane interests.

The 2015 opening of Cape Wickham golf course at King Island introduced a new destination for operators at Essendon Airport and elsewhere.

The passengers on yesterday’s flight were four Americans on a golf outing. It is thought they were running late, which may explain why the plane took off half an hour behind schedule.

Cape Wickham is considered one of the best courses in Australia, its exclusivity lending it growing popularity. As a tour operator boasts, you can “play this brand new course and make it back before anyone notices you’ve been gone”.

Damage to the DFO shopping complex in the aftermath of the plane crash at Essendon Fields. Picture: Twitter

Mike Symons, chairman of the Melbourne Racing Club, was boarding a chopper for a round of golf when he heard about the crash. On a King Island golf trip earlier this month, he endured an aborted landing in heavy cross winds.

Symons fears for the burgeoning industry’s future, given many flights are single-engine (yesterday’s was twin-engined). “I’m happy to be back on terra firma,” he said.

A DFO shopper, Daryl Lloyd, surveyed the deserted road-widening equipment on the Tullamarine Freeway and pondered near misses.

The tragedy should not lead to big questions, he said.

“It’s been here too long, mate,” he said of the airport. “You can’t stop it now.”

Hutchings, like Strathmore residents at a runway’s end, was unaccustomed to the quiet yesterday. No planes skimmed in and out overhead.

“It’s more dangerous crossing Bulla Rd,” she said. “Anyway, the airport was here first.”

[e-mail]