Instructor And Student In Other Plane Landed Safely

Two people were lost in a mid-air collision near Bankstown, Australia on December 20, and two survived.

Flight instructor Joanne Ethell, 20, and her student, Chandrika Gaur, 18, were fatally injured after their Cessna 152 collided with another plane and crashed into a residence southwest of Sydney, the Australian Associated Press reported.

Flight instructor and former WWII pilot Ken Andrews, 89, and an unidentified 25-year-old male student were able to fly their single-engine Liberty back to nearby Bankstown Airport, where they landed safely.

Investigator Brett Leyshon of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said, "Normally we don't have survivors (of mid-air collisions). They are the closest witnesses we have to the occurrence, so ... we'll be spending considerable time taking them back through the events."

The crash took place in uncontrolled airspace, subject to "see and avoid" techniques. "You look out of the aircraft, you don't fly around with your head inside the cockpit watching instruments all the time," Leyshon said. "It's a common sense thing called airmanship -- that if you're unsure of what another aircraft is doing and you know it's in the vicinity, why not ask it on the radio?"

Ethell was an instructor for flight training school Basair, based at Bankstown Airport, and graduated from the company's Cessnock-based academy earlier this year, the AAP said. She had dreams of following in her father's and grandfather's footsteps, hoping to find a career as a pilot for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Ms Ethell's uncle, Brett Ethell, said, "Her mother told me this morning that when she went through her old books that she found a Year Six schoolbook (in which) she had written in the back that she wanted to be a pilot. Her ultimate goal was to fly for the Royal Flying Doctor Service - she didn't want to fly 747s."

A preliminary report of the accident would be released in about a month, but the final report could take up to a year, Leyshon said.

FMI: www.atsb.gov.au