Victims mourned on 65-year anniversary of TAA Fokker F-27 Friendship tragedy

After 65 years, the night Audrey Camilleri lost her brother in Queensland’s worst commercial air disaster is still fresh in her mind — but she fears the story will be forgotten in time.

Mackay RSL Sub branch senior Vice President Col Benson with Audrey Camilleri at the memorial of the TAA Fokker F-27 Friendship plane crash tragedy which claimed the life of Ms Camilleri's 15-year-old brother Edgar Dowse 65 years ago. Photo: Luke Lay

On the night her brother was due to arrive for the Queen’s birthday long weekend, Audrey Camilleri and her mum noticed a plane circling the skies above her house on Nebo Road in Mackay.

“She was on the veranda and she said this plane has been circling around for so long,” she said.

With her sister already at the airport waiting for the Fokker F-27 Friendship to touch down, Ms Camilleri and her mum decided to chase her brother’s plane through the foggy streets to where her sister waited with the other nervous families.

“The TAA (Trans Australia Airlines) people came over and they said ‘We’ve lost contact. We just don’t know where the plane is’.

“Then we heard that it must’ve crashed … I thought they might have landed somewhere, we didn’t ever expect that to happen.”

Audrey Camilleri holding a photo of her younger brother Edgar Dowse who was one of the 25 passengers and four crew members on board the Abel Tasman.

Fifteen-year-old Edgar Dowse was one of 29 people on board the Abel Tasman on route to Mackay from Rockhampton when it crashed off the coast of Mackay on June 10, 1960 taking the lives of everyone on board.

The night is “still very fresh” in the mind of Ms Camilleri, who was only 23 at the time her younger brother died, but she’s scared younger generations don’t even know what happened.

“It was pretty sad for the simple reason my sister Tyra got married in April, I got married in May and then we lost Edgar in June,” she said.

“It was a pretty hollow household.”

Audrey Camilleri feared without a story to go along the bronze plaque, the younger generation would never know the truth behind the events of June 10, 1960

The surviving families have renewed calls for a more fitting memorial honouring the four crew members and 24 passengers who lost their lives.

“In 10 years time a lot of the brothers and sisters won’t be alive neither,” she said.

“People say ‘well I wonder what happened?’ you know? So if they had a little plaque or something to have a little story about what happened and why are those names there.”

The Fokker Friendship Memorial at Illawong Beach has since become a focal point for Ms Camilleri and victim’s family members who, like her, have carried the flame of one of Australia’s worst aviation tragedies.

TAA Fokker F-27 Friendship Abel Tasman plane plummeted into the ocean at Far Beach killing all 29 on board on June 10, 1960

Mackay RSL Sub Branch Senior Vice President Col Benson was 14 at the time and had known Mr Dowse as a young boy.

He said context was needed for the memorial site which had too often gone unnoticed in the memorial gardens.

Audrey Camilleri holding her 15-year-old brother’s photo and a photo of the Rockhampton School blazer he which was found in the wreckage before being donated to the grammar school. Photo: Luke Lay

“People come and have a look at it and yes there’s a list of 29 names on the bronze plaque but there’s no story behind it. It’s certainly needed,” he said.

Victims of the crash included nine boarders, a 21-year-old Rockhampton Grammar teacher, cyclists coming up from Maryborough for a biking event and other local Mackay residents.

Tail Assembly of the Fokker Friendship which crashed killing 29 on board dragged from the seabed off Mackay being secured by crew members of HMAS Warrego. Picture by Norm Lee

Mr Dowse would have been 80-years-old this year and Ms Camilleri and her sister Tyra Wales frequently fit a visit to the Illawong memorial.

“We always go down to the cairn on the day,” she said.

“The first few years my mother and I went down every week but now I go down once a month and just clean up the cairn a little bit and make sure the flowers are nice.”

A memorial will be held to commemorate 65 years since the AAT Fokker F-27 Friendship plummeted into the ocean at the Petrie St Memorial at Illawong Beach on Tuesday, June 10 at 11am.

Guest speakers will include the Head of Boarders from The Rockhampton Grammar School and the son of Rod Manning, the then Daily Mercury journalist and later editor who was supposed to interview the US Consul to Queensland arriving in Mackay on the ill-fated plane.

Mackay Regional Council has been contacted to ask if it would be willing to build a plaque sharing the story of the crash for future generations.

Originally published as Victims mourned on 65-year anniversary of TAA Fokker F-27 Friendship tragedy