Two die in kit plane crash

By Paul Dunlop and Sarah Schwager
CLYDE North residents were shocked when a aircraft crashed in their backyards on Friday, killing two people.
Paramedics and fire crews from Cranbourne and Tooradin rushed to the scene minutes after the home-built kit aircraft fell out of the sky after doing acrobatics above farm paddocks in McCormacks Road.
The pilot, a 36-year-old Hamilton man, and his passenger, a Fairfield man also aged in his 30s, were thrown out of the plane on impact after it hit the ground in a fiery ball.
Wreckage from the crash was spread over about 150 metres and parts of the plane were also found on an adjoining farm about 500 metres away.
Clyde North resident Sue Miller was tending to horses at her agistment property Kenley Lodge when she saw the drama unfold just before 5.45pm.
Ms Miller watched the plane perform various flying manoeuvres before it suddenly plummeted out of the sky.
“It was horrifying. We see planes up in the air every day, flying upside down, spiralling – this area is a training ground for light aircraft,” she said.
“You see them all the time but they’re not meant to crash.”
Ms Miller was working alongside Berwick man Leon Russell, who also saw the aircraft, a single-engine Vans RV-4, in its final deadly descent.
“The plane was dropping really quickly and wasn’t that far away when things started falling off it,” Mr Russell said.
“It was totally out of control, it was going really fast, it just came down.”
The local pair looked on in shock as the plane crashed to the ground.
“It just exploded. There was a loud bang and then a fireball and black smoke,” Ms Miller said.
Country Fire Authority units from Clyde, Cardinia, Cranbourne and Tooradin attended the scene, along with State Emergency Service members and police from Pakenham and Cranbourne.
Detective Sergeant Larry Grimshaw from Cranbourne CIU said Cranbourne police were assisting the coroner with investigations into how the plane crashed.
“It was just such a sad and tragic loss,” Det Sgt Grimshaw said.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating the crash and is expected to release a preliminary report within 30 days.
Forensic experts had to resort to DNA tests to identify the bodies of the two men as they were so badly burned.
A pathologist and coroner’s assistant went to the scene, as did police from the Disaster Victim Identification Unit.
The dead men’s names have not yet been released.