Warbird Information Exchange

War plane set to stay in lake grave

Yasmin Paton

10Jul08

LAKE Corangamite looks likely to be the eternal graveyard for a war plane which crashed almost 60 years ago.

Colac agricultural pilot Gordon Wilson discovered the relic in 2005 and hoped to remove and preserve the plane.

However, Heritage Victoria executive director Ray Tonkin said the wreck was too fragile to move without causing significant and permanent damage.

Royal Australian Air Force pilot Vance Drummond was completing a training flight in October 1950 when his Wirraway aeroplane dove into Lake Corangamite.

He survived, but died in a separate plane crash in 1967.

Mr Wilson said he first heard of the plane's existence in the 1960s but could not locate the site.

While flying over Lake Corangamite three years ago, he spotted the tip of the aeroplane's wing.

"I always wanted to find it and finally did," Mr Wilson said.

Mr Tonkin said a plan detailing the plane's long-term care was required before Heritage Victoria would consider removing the plane.

"Unless significant funding was available to conserve the wreck, its condition would quickly deteriorate if moved from the lake," Mr Tonkin said.

"Reburying the wreck would be the best way to protect it from environmental risks such as corrosion, as well as illegal fossicking."

Mr Wilson said he did not have the resources to fund a removal plan and would be disappointed if the plane remained in its current location.

"We were hoping we may have been able to get it out and put it on display," he said.

"I felt it would have been nice to have a reminder of our past history."

Mr Tonkin said Heritage Victoria would continue discussions with the Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria.

Vandals warned: hands off historic relics
Kelly Ryan From: Herald Sun October 14, 2006 12:00AM

VANDALS face massive fines and jail if they tamper with historic relics and sites uncovered by drought.

Heritage Victoria has warned of $60,000 penalties and up to a year behind bars for souvenir scalpers who disturb long-lost relics turning up as water levels drop and the bush thins out.

A WW2 plane that ditched near Colac about 55 years ago, and forging equipment believed to have been used to make the Kelly Gang armour, are among historic items that have recently turned up.

But gold mining machinery, and even the remains of early settlements built around Lake Eildon, have also come to light as drought continues to take a devastating toll across the state.

Heritage Victoria senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith said any site or relic of more than 50 years was included under a Heritage Victoria blanket protection order.

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"Substantial penalties apply to people caught disturbing these heritage items," Mr Smith said.

The warning follows the discovery last year of a WW2 Wirraway ditched in Lake Corangamite.

Souvenir scalpers have already cut a piece from the small plane and fears are high they will return to snip more metal from the aircraft.

Colac pilots Gordon Wilson and Norm Tann have been keeping a watchful eye on the resurfaced craft from the air as they regularly fly over the area.

But Mr Smith said Heritage Victoria staff would police the Heritage Act 1995 and people caught tampering with protected items would be prosecuted.

Mr Smith said early settlements established during the gold rush days, and mining relics including machinery had surfaced around Beechworth.

Piers and jetties used during the first days of the early colony have also been revealed as major waterways dry up and disappear.

Lake plane left to rot : Historic wreck proves too unstableBY JARED LYNCH
27/06/2008 4:00:00 AM
A HISTORIC plane will be left to rot in the mud of Lake Corangamite where it crash-landed almost 60 years ago.

Colac-based agricultural pilot Gordon Wilson hoped to remove the aircraft from its watery grave, restore it and put it on public display. But yesterday he confirmed tough Heritage Victoria guidelines had forced him to ditch the plan.

The state's peak heritage body told Mr Wilson he could remove the RAAF Wirraway aircraft so long as it remained intact during extraction - something he said he could not guarantee.

"Three years ago you could have moved it,'' he told The Standard......
"But it has now deteriorated to a point that if you moved it you would damage it"...... "There are also other costs involved so we have decided to leave it where it is.''

The plane crash-landed in the lake in 1950 while on a low-level training exercise from Point Cook airbase near Melbourne. The pilot escaped unharmed.

The salt-encrusted wreck, which is protected under the Victorian Marine Heritage Act, became visible when water levels began to recede three years ago.

While declining water levels have revealed more of the postwar relic, the salty air has sped up its deterioration.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment said yesterday it was in talks with Heritage Victoria and Parks Victoria to determine how best to manage the aircraft.``At this stage it is really too early to release a lot of details,'' a spokeswoman said. ``But our discussions are continuing about what is the best way to preserve the wreck.''

Wirraways were the first mass-produced Australian aircraft. They even predate the country's first mass-produced car - the 1948 FX Holden. Although the planes were built as a general-purpose trainer, they saw action in Malaya and Papua New Guinea in World War II.

Mr Wilson has researched the pilot responsible for the Lake Corangamite wreck, Vance Drummond. When Mr Drummond crash-landed in the lake, he was only a trainee in the Royal Australian Air Force. But he quickly rose through the ranks and become a decorated pilot.

In 1967 he became the commanding officer of Australia's frontline fighter squadron. But it was then, after he had fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars, that he tragically died in a training exercise in New South Wales when he crashed his plane at sea. Neither he or the aircraft were seen again.


Those caught disrupting the Wirraway plane face fines of up to $132,000.
Anyone with information about interference with the site is asked to contact Heritage Victoria on 9637 9475 or Camperdown police on 5593 1000.

It could be recovered and displayed "as is" in the local area, but the local community would have less resources to do that than the 3 museums mentioned earlier, hence its current state.