Near Disaster at Edinburgh Field

In September 1966 Flight Lieutenant "Swass" Wackett was captain of XR106 tasked to attend Australia National Air Week to display the Argosy and provide the jump platform for the FEAF Free Fall Parachute Team. Corporal Tommy Toms (electrician) and myself were ground crew and the parachutists also had a ground support team. We flew to RAAF Edinburgh Field (near Adeliade) via Butterwoth, Cocos Islands and Perth. We were accompanied by a Mark 3 Shackleton from UK which was on detachment with our neighbours 205 Squadron.

The free-fallers and the aircraft performed to a packed crowd on Saturday 10th September without incident. The aircraft would take off and clear the display area to gain altitude for the free-fallers and then drop a streamer so that the ground party could assess wind conditions. When the jumpers had cleared "Swass" would begin his display which started with fast and low approach parallel to the crowd, left to right, before turning away and climbing out for the rest of the display.

Sunday was to be a repeat performance which we watched from the ground. All was normal until the start of the aircraft display, as it approached we could see something streaming from the tailplane which we assumed was a wind speed test streamer. Instead of turning away from the crowd the aircraft continued in a straight line, still descending. No display was carried out and some time later the aircraft landed and we marshalled it in. We immediately saw the problem, the 26 man dinghy had been released from the upper wing and wrapped itself around the elevators.

On it's way out the dinghy compartment lid caused considerable damage to the fairing forward of the upper cargo door, the Aussies repaired this. The elevator was so badly buckled by the remains of the dinghy and it's gas bottle being entangled that it needed replacing - no Argosy spares in Australia. We were stranded until a replacement could be flown from Changi. The lid and remains of the dinghy were found in the vicinity of the airfield.

Six days later XP445 arrived with a spare elevator and a couple of riggers, Pete Quinlan and Derek Allgood I think. We took 445 to Laverton for one more display and then returned to Changi with an extra refuelling stop at Port Headland.

As far as I know the cause of the near disaster was never established but those riggers amongst us who had previously been at Benson had received special training in the fitting of dinghies because it was known that you could get a false indication that the lid was correctly locked. My suspicion was that someone who had not received that training had removed and refitted that dinghy lid without putting an entry in the 700.

Since publishing this I have read Roger Annett's book Drop Zone Borneo (Chapter 5) and learned that the same thing happened to XP446 a couple of years earlier.

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