When will people treat the Outback Seriously

Why didnt the plane have an emergency locator beacon. I know they arent compulsory on small planes but as you say they would be sensible to have

There may be more to the story as yet untold.

Or why didn't he declare a Pan or a Mayday with the aircraft's radio?

Fell ill, landed his plane then walked 70 kilometres for help, now that's an interesting headline!

Something is wrong with that story. Fell ill but could walk 70 kms. Like others said, prob more to the story yet!

What happened to the planes radio?

Sure this isn't another urban myth?

From this article he was an Adelaide specialist. Sounds like he wasn't even a regular. Familiarity breads contempt. Hmmmm He said that he got food poisoning in Coober Pedy and had to land.

It didn't sound like he was an "outback doctor"

Both articles that I read, said that "the lack of phone coverage did not help". No mention of anything like an EPIRB, beacon or satellite phone and what happened to the planes radio. Left at home with the laptop was it!

Methinks there isn't a lot of knowledge behind the high IQ.

Phil

What this and similar incidents in the outback highlight is that there is a broad and general lack of understanding among many Australians and visitors to our country of the remoteness and lack of facilities, including communications, in many parts of the Australian bush and outback...

Noting, you don’t have to go far from one of our capital cities to be in an area considered remote!

Many are accustomed to living in an age where communication is instantaneous with an iPhone in-hand, a 7-Eleven store can be found on every other street corner and a petrol bowser just down the road.

And whilst it is sometimes hard to understand why some people don’t take some basic precautions and preparations, let’s not lose sight of the fact that within the EO community we are mostly “preaching to the converted” – most of us have an understanding of the outback and the difficulties one can be presented with once you pass the “city limits”. Especially when it comes to the provision of services and facilities city dwellers might be more accustomed to.

For some, they simply don’t know what they don’t know – education is key and thankfully resources such as ExplorOz and the collective knowledge of contributors hopefully make information more accessible for those looking to travel into remote areas of our continent.

As to the person involved in this incident – I’m glad he has survived and maybe he will become an advocate amongst his friends and peers for better preparation when heading into the Australian Outback.

Cheers, Baz – The Landy

Gday
I always thought that food poisening passed in about four or so hrs. A good poo and all is over. Why not use his doctor skills .
And will anyone be able to take off with the aeroplane, or is it ankle deep in what the doctor should have done.

The definition of a Specialist is a doctor who knows more and more about less and less.

In 2004 we were travelling to Alice Springs before doing the Madigan Line. Turned off the highway to camp at Redbank Waterhole. Came across a guy walking towards the highway carrying a 600ml water bottle. Said he was bogged and had his family back at the car. Drove him 6km back to his hire car, let some air out of his tyres which were at 45psi and helped him on his way. He was also a specialist physician from Adelaide. Maybe we could add something to their curriculum!

18 hours to walk 70klm, If he was in the air how long would it have taken to stay in the aircraft and fly to William Creek? 20 - 30 minutes?
He must have been crook!
Averaging 3.89klm per hour is a good pace too!

You've got to be kidding....Walk in a straight line 70Ks in glaring heat and sunshine. Flat featureless country with no compass or a GPS with William Ck plotted. HA.
But then he may have had those navigation aid. If he didnt he would have been walking around in circles for ever.
An experienced navigator would have difficulties

I think it was Dr. Who....a seasoned time traveller where distance means nothing.

I was wondering why he did not land at the pub. Everybody else does.
OBJ

All sounds very suss to me, all he had to do was use the radio in the plane to call for help.

Walking 70klms is loong....... way, no way this is legit IMO

Like others have said, the story sounds a bit sus.

I reckon he decided to stop on the lake to take a dump, rather than soil the interior of the aircraft.

It must have been difficult to land on a featureless white expanse because pilots rely on visual reference points and the texture of the landing strip for clues as to their height during landing.

Having relieved himself, and thus ensuring the surface of the lake was no longer featureless, he probably found that the landing gear had broken through the salt crust and the aircraft was going nowhere.

He would then have discovered that his VHF radio was useless, unless an overflying jet was monitoring 121.5 MHz. He may also have discovered that his mobile phone was just as useful. He could have taken a selfie though.

He probably chose not to activate the plane's ELT. We don't know if he had an HF radio or not, but if he did, a call may have been useful before setting off on the impressive 70km walk.

I think he should be applauded for the landing and the walk.

The whole saga could be summarised as " shXX happens", and when it does, better out of the aircraft than it it.

Bob

I guess he landed on the lake because he thought he could then take a dump, have a spew, wait for the colicky pain to settle then take off again.
Little did he know that under that the crust is an endless pit of black boggy goo - I found out the hard way too when I drove the Corolla on Lake Eyre South in 1977.

The other factor nobody mentioned is that a good spew in a plane can take out the microphone on your radio.
2 years ago I was spewing on one of Mt Wrights planes'over Lake Eyre, but the excellent young lady pilot had warned us before to remove the microphone first!

A few years ago (40 or so) I was working for a diesel engine agency in Perth. One of the other young blokes got selected to go and fix a busted drill rig engine out in the bush in the Pilbara. The trip involved flying to Mt Newman on Mickey Mouse Airlines (McRobertson Miller). Later bought out by Reg Ansett and then I think Qantas????
From the airport at Mt Newman he caught a little single engined wing flapper to some makeshift runway a couple of hundred k's away. No worries, got the drill rig up and running and of course availed himself of the wet mess hospitality the night before departing on another single engined aircraft back to Mt Newman in time to catch the big kero burner back to Perth.
All good until not long into the flight he felt the unmistakable pangs of whatever he had eaten and drank the night before making ready to depart his digestive tract.
Very soon the contents of his aforementioned digestive system made it's desire for passage to the outside world something of extreme urgency. He tried telling the pilot of his needs but was told quite clearly that unscheduled deviations from the flight plan was something that would have dire consequences for the pilot, even though they passed over a couple of station runways.
Not long after that conversation he informed the pilot that if he didn't land that plane somewhere and soon he was going to take a rather large and smelly dump on the seat beside him.
As it was just the 2 of them and a 4 seater plane the pilot suggested he hop into the back seats and use a couple of air sick bags.
Well as you can probably imagine, the, umm, stool wasn't particularly solid. In fact going by the way he told it the stool was much more liquid than solid. Quite pungent too apparently. He says it was the first time he had flown with any pilot that continually made reching noises interspersed with comments along the lines of "what the hell have you been eating", while flying along with his face pressed to a little flip out side window similar to the quarter vents fitted to some cars back then. He also told the mate that one of the little side windows alongside the rear seats wound out a bit and suggested quite strongly that opening one would be a good idea. The mate did so and came up with the bright idea that maybe he could shove the used paper air sick bags out through that window.
Bad idea. Imagine pushing with your fingers, paper bags saturated with liquid poo out a smallish opening into a 150 (or thereabouts) mile per hour slipstream.
Appaently some did make it out of the cabin and got spread out like some sort of demonic drag strip down the side of the plane. Unfortunately the rest managed to re-enter the cabin and I will let your imagination fill out what the results of that was.

Cheers
Pop

Are there any media reports about this????

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome

It would be nice if people had the guts to tell the true story. Mostly people cover up and we learn nothing. As a previous poster said shxt happens. We all been there.

Great post, this bloke is NOT an idiot, he has an IQ most of us would kill for. He is a pilot. He has a medical degree. He also saves people. He knows how to manage risk! He understands his own limitations. He might have been concerned about passing out? Saved his own life if that was the case! I say respect him, find out what led to his decision and please don't pull the Asian label, just makes us look all the more pathetic. That's my take!!

There are two very distinct parts to this incident, although the two are often being inter-twined in these discussions…

Firstly, many people, including Australian’s and overseas visitors, travelling in Outback areas in Australia do so unequipped to deal with emergencies and in many cases this is due to a lack of understanding of the remoteness, lack of facilities, and importantly, limited ability to communicate in a way that many are accustomed to..

This is not necessarily surprising in an age where an Apple iPhone will connect you to anyone, anywhere, a 7-Eleven store exists on every other corner in Australia, and fuel is on tap wherever you go.

For some people they simply do not know, what they don’t know.

This is where resources like ExplorOz play a significant role in providing access to many who have experience in Outback travel and this collective knowledge is available via a simple “google search” – educating people to do the “search” is key…

But it will always be difficult to save people from their own ignorance, so I expect that there will always be people who find themselves ill-prepared for Outback Australian travel. Most will bungle through, some won’t.

Secondly, many have questions on the rationale for the decisions this person made, for the actions not taken. Understandably so, but it is easy to critique these decisions and have better solutions with the benefit of a “safe” environment to ponder these decisions. However, at this time none of us have the benefit of context or insight into the decisions he made, and perhaps with the fullness of time we will.

It will hopefully add to the collective knowledge of risk management in remote areas…

Personally, I am interested in hearing more about his experience on a number of fronts. Being a pilot I am interested in the decisions he made, and why he made those. And as a remote area bushwalker and endurance race competitor, I am interested in his physical prowess and navigation skills in a reasonably featureless environment.

Covering the distance he did, in a depleted physical condition, potentially dehydrated from food poisoning and with little water to sustain him, was quite remarkable, especially as some of his trek would have been in darkness.

But until we actually get some information from the gentleman involved, whom I’m sure we are all glad survived this ordeal, we will only ever be able to speculate…

Let’s get some facts and information to work with first…


Cheers, Baz – The Landy

I have a theory....pure speculation, of course.
There was no emergency at all.
He chose to land on the lake surface believing he could simply take off again, because it would be a "cool" thing to do.
The rest is a result of severe embarrassment.

Cheers,
Peter

As the WA police said in the TV show mentioned in this post below; "You can't regulate against stupidity". So bloody true.

Saw this on TV on the ABC News channel on 24 News. The applicable report starts at 15 minutes into the show;
Australia Wide news

Personally a combination of both electronics and practical based measures are the best that we can do.

We have the GPS, a Satellite phone, paper maps and compass (non electronic) and many years heading bush. We have also; my survival courses and exercises during Army service and my wife was a nurse at one time. And I am confident to say, a common sense approach to our travels.

Our approach is simple; Getting there is one thing but you must be able to come back. We usually like to travel solo, thus all works, accessories, upgrades etc, and servicing, is done on the car primarily to get us home. Being able to climb rocks, have the brightest driving LEDs or do a chip upgrade to get more power or look/sound good means ZIP if you can't get home.

Phil