Miracle pilot survives after horror crash
Published: March 9, 2007
Battered and bruised, a crop duster pilot who crashed into a mountain range spent his 44th birthday in Mackay Base Hospital yesterday.
But after hauling himself from the wreckage of his light plane and a nervous three-hour wait in remote scrub for help, Richard McDonald was just glad to be alive.
The Rockhampton man was spraying cattle pasture 20km south-west of Clairview when he lost control of the plane and crashed into remote bush about 7.30am Saturday.
His light plane disintegrated, shedding jagged metal in the scrub — but the cockpit and the “miracle man” sitting inside it were barely damaged.
The worst complaint the experienced pilot, who owns a MiG 15, had was “lower pack pain”.
“People just don’t walk away from these things, especially with all those trees around,” Sarina fire station Captain Barry Mooney said. “It’s absolutely unreal the plane didn’t catch fire.”
Aside from his good fortune, Mr McDonald owes his health to Mr Mooney and a team of emergency services workers who embarked on a trying rescue mission.
After an hour’s drive south-west, Mr Mooney met with Carmila ambulance relief officer in charge Harry Beyne, Carmila police and local property owners before setting out to find Mr McDonald.
Although they knew the pilot was alive because he had radioed for help, they didn’t know where he had crashed.
Some set out on foot and others loaded their equipment into a nearby property-owner’s ute to search for him.
“We drove for nearly an hour through paddocks and scrubland before we heard the property owner had found him,” Mr Beyne said.
“Then we went up the mountain range on foot for about 800 metres through thick lantana, carrying all the medical equipment, to get to him.”
They arrived to find that, “miraculously”, Mr McDonald had pulled himself free of the wreckage.
Soon after, Mackay’s RACQ-CQ Rescue helicopter arrived and winched two crewmen and additional medical equipment onto the mountain side. They took it down to Mr McDonald and made sure he was fit to fly, then carried the pilot 70metres uphill (where there was a spot clear enough for the chopper to hover above) and winched him 75metres into the air.
“Depending on what way you look at it he’s a very lucky person,” helicopter crewman Dave Williams said. “It’s never good luck to be in an accident. But when you see the wreck — well, it’s amazing he’s still alive.”
In fact, sunburnt, exhausted and covered in lantana scratches, paramedic Harry Beyne joked he felt worse for wear than the pilot.
But he said however unpleasant the search was in the heat, he was just glad it was such a good result.
“Not many plane crash stories have a happy ending,” he said.
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