The ANA Skymaster Amana crash was an aircraft crash which occurred near
Perth, Western Australia on 26 June 1950. At 9:50pm, a Douglas DC-4 Skymaster plane named Amana, operated by Australian National Airways, departed
Guildford aerodrome (now
Perth Airport) in
Perth, Western Australia, heading for
Adelaide. Soon after departure, the airport lost radio contact with the plane,
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The Amana crashed on an isolated 60,000-acre property, owned by Mr Roy Inkpen, which was almost twelve
miles in a direct line northwest of
York and about four
miles from the main road. Leonard Bruce McNamara, the eyewitness who was living on Mr Inkpen's property at the time, reported that at 10:20am he heard the sound of the engines cutting out and ran outside to see a flaming mass in the sky. The mass then disappeared from view and soon afterwards there was a loud bang.
Mr McNamara climbed into his farm utility to inform the police. Meanwhile two ambulances could not spot the crash and drove straight through to
York. Mr McNamara joined up with the ambulances and guided them back to the crash. The plane did not notify the South
Guildford airport of a problem with the engines. In fact, there was not a word from the plane after they reported that they were "on course". This puzzled aviation officials as any problem as large as this would have given plenty of warning and would have been easily spotted by any of the crew onboard. In fact, the airport attempted to contact the plane several times, without response.
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A pilot flying the McDouall Stuart, another Skymaster plane operated by Trans Australia Airlines, spotted a fire in bushland between Chidlow and
York, and reported the coordinates.Rescue workers located the Amana, which had crashed in dense scrub on Berrybrow Estate, 22 kilometres west of
York. 28 people died instantly in the crash, including 23 passengers and five crew members. Two men who lived on the property were first on the scene of the widely scattered burning wreckage to discover an elderly man walking around dazed with burnt clothes. This 67 year old
Adelaide businessman was the only person to survive the initial crash, but died five days later in a
Perth hospital. Eighteen bodies were so badly burnt they were not recognisable
Those eighteen were buried in a mass grave in Karrakatta
cemetery on Monday of the next week. Among the victims On-board the Amana were eight adults and an infant who had Western Australian residential addresses.
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Five bodies, including that of the commander, were thrown from the plane as it crashed through the trees and the bodies of the co-pilot and the two airhostesses were found under the front of the wrecked fuselage. Three of the four engines attached to the plane were found strewn away from the plane, one of which was found in a gully almost 150 yards away.
It has not been determined why the plane crashed, but it is presumed the plane caught fire in mid-air suggesting that there was a fault with the engines. In 1950 planes were not equipped with black boxes so there is no evidence of what happened. The Amana seemed to be trying to turn just before the crash, heading back to
Guildford or a cleared field a few
miles away, although the closest landing strip was the Royal Australian Air Force station at
Cunderdin.
The Amana had its first flight in 1946 and was the flagship of the fleet. It had set an Australian speed record for a commercial plane and a world record for a Skymaster aircraft when it flew the
Perth to
Melbourne route in 6 hours 16 mins at an average speed of 460 km/h.
There is a
memorial to the victims of the crash at
the entrance to the
Beverley Aeronautical Museum, with flowers laid in their memory on the anniversary of this incident. A
memorial church service was held for the victim including two Anglican ministers at St Georges Cathedral.
The Skymaster crash was, at the time, Australia's worst civilian plane crash. The crash of the ANA Skymaster Amana remains the second worst commercial / civilian air disaster in Australia and the worst in Western Australia's history.
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