Report due on fatal Essendon plane accident

The long-awaited final report on last year’s horrific plane crash at Essendon will be released today.

Smoke rises at Essendon Airport after the fatal crash last year of a light plane.

The long-awaited final report on last year’s fatal plane crash at Essendon will be released today, seven months after the investigation was completed.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau reported in February the investigation had been finalised and the report has since been subject to reviews by international parties including the US National Transportation Safety Board and the US’s Federal Aviation Administration.

Five people including four US tourists were killed when a Beechcraft King Air B200 crashed into a shopping centre and exploded into flames, nine seconds after take-off from Essendon Airport on February 21 last year.

Experienced pilot Max Quartermain, 63, was flying the group to King Island, off Tasmania’s northwest coast, for a day of golf.

The preliminary ATSB report released in March last year revealed the pilot had radioed “mayday” seven times in the seconds before impact.

No further information about the nature of the emergency was broadcast and onsite examination of the wreckage found no pre-existing faults. However the widely held view in the aviation community is that a problem with the left engine or propeller contributed to the crash.

Aviation safety expert and former accident investigator Geoffrey Dell said engine failure on take-off was the “worst scenario you can be presented with” as a pilot.

“If you’ve got no power on one side and no airspeed to counteract that, you’re going to go down,” Dr Dell said.

One of the many questions the ATSB was seeking to answer in its final report was why the cockpit voice recorder failed to work during the brief flight.