Three pilots have reached an out-of-court settlement with two aircraft maintenance firms and Australia’s air-traffic-control body over a fiery plane crash in which they suffered horrific injuries.
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Clark Gibbons, Donald Cooke and his son, Robert, were returning to Sydney after a training flight to Canberra in a Cessna 210 single engine aircraft on July 13, 1995, when they struck trouble.
The plane came down in hilly, timbered country near the northern foreshores of Lake George.
The pilots’ barrister, James Glissan, QC, told Justice Michael Grove in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, that a sudden decrease in manifold air pressure indicated difficulty with the engine.
There was a loss of engine power, he said.
The control tower at Canberra Airport was told the engine had failed and the plane would require radar guidance to land, Mr Glissan said.
To obtain safe landing the effective control of the aircraft was in the hands of Canberra flight control.
He said the pilot and instructor, Clark Gibbons, 55, who had taken over the plane’s controls from Donald Cooke, 74, asked flight control for directions to land on nearby Lake George.
The foreshore of the lake was a flat marshy expanse with few obstacles and if the plane had landed there it would likely have sustained minor damage.
Instead the plane was flown by flight control into the side of a hill where it burst into flames and the men suffered horrific injuries, he said.
Donald Cooke received burns to his face and head, Mr Gibbons felt his face and hair on fire and Robert Cooke, 25, received less injuries. The men sued Hawker Pacific, Reliance Aviation and Airservices Australia for negligence over the crash.
Late yesterday afternoon Mr Glissan said the matter had been resolved between the parties.
The out-of-court settlement was on terms and conditions not to be disclosed.
