PART ONE

Everyone so concluded, except for Bernard O’Reilly. In his book, Green Mountains, O’Reilly states that, eight days after the supposed crash, and armed only with his bushman’s instinct and a report that the plane had not stopped at Lismore on its way south as scheduled, he decided that the search had been conducted in the wrong areas. He surmised that the pilot had turned inland, away from his scheduled route, and had tried to fly over the mountains, to avoid the coastal cyclone.

Despite his own misgivings, and the disbelief of others, O’Reilly decided to make a personal search, a staggering 645 kilometres away from where the plane had supposedly been last seen.

friend, Bob Stevens, claimed he had last seen the plane, along its line of flight to Lismore, where it had failed to land. This plotted line traversed four high mountain ranges and, remarkably, O’Reilly reasoned that it must have crashed on the northern slopes of one of these four, and, therefore, more than 600 kilometres north of its supposed crash site near Sydney!

As an experienced bushman, O’Reilly then made his preparations for the search (and, hopefully, rescue) expedition he was determined to make.

O’Reilly’s

He expressed his doubts thus: “Why in the name of all that is sane and reasonable should a man go out and search nearly 400 miles away from where the plane was last seen?”

Nevertheless, O’Reilly had faith in his theory, so much so that he consulted an Aerial Survey map of the McPherson Ranges. With a ruler and pencil, he drew a straight line from the point where a nearby

Simple indeed were his needs: a jam tin with a wire handle, to serve as billy-can and cup, two loaves of bread, a pound of butter, six onions, and tea and sugar, all placed in his canvas tucker-bag.

O’Reilly’s 70 year-old mother insisted he take “a snake-bite outfit”, consisting of a razorblade, Condy’s Crystals and a length of strong cord, for a tourniquet. He rode an old farm-horse as far as Mt Bethongabel, a high point on the NSW – Queensland border, and then sent her back home.

He soon found himself in deep, almost impenetrable jungle, with deep gorges and high ridges.

Although O’Reilly had some knowledge of the general area, he soon found himself on the summit of Mt Throakban, where he had never been before. Amid the clouds and mist, O’Reilly suddenly saw in the distance “a tree-top which was light brown”.

His bush knowledge told him this was unusual for late summer. What had caused it? A fire? A lightning strike? Or possibly, the burning of many gallons of aviation fuel?

It took him eight gruelling hours to reach this tree... and he kept climbing and descending for at least a further three hours, before he heard, incredibly, a human voice!

With a loud “Coo-ee!” the Aussie bushman’s call, he heard the response of not one, but two voices.

Despite his amazement, O’Reilly reasoned that they must be fellow rescuers, as all logic indicated that even if there had been survivors of the crash, they must be dead by now. He climbed down towards the voices, and, in his own words: “Before I looked down, I knew that I would see – a mass of smashed and charred metal. It was more than that; it was a horrible, unclean thing, which held the remains of what had once been men, a repulsive thing that I could not go near. The voices came again from below the wreck. Two voices – men alive, but in what condition? I stood for a minute, afraid to go on to them, afraid of what I should see.”

What he did see was both horrifying and miraculous. Two men, Proud and Binstead, were alive but in a dreadful state. Proud had lain for ten days on the wet ground, with a leg so badly broken that gangrene had set in. Binstead, his hands and legs red raw, tried to shake O’Reilly’s hand. It emerged that, for ten days, Binstead had crawled up and down the rocky hillside to get water for his immobilised companion.

The airliner had been tossed around in the fury of the cyclone and had crashed directly into the side of the mountain. Both pilots, Boyden and Shepherd, had died instantly; their bodies still slumped in their seats. The two passengers on the starboard side had also perished in the crash. Soon after, the immense amount of spilt fuel erupted and the aircraft burst into flames.

Despite a broken leg, Proud had smashed a window and helped Binstead escape. Binstead then pulled a young Englishman, Jim Westray, from the fiery wreck. Somewhat prematurely, the three men then congratulated each other on their lucky escape, only later to realise that a far more ghastly fate awaited them ... involving physical pain, exposure, starvation, thirst, utter despair, and, for one of them, a tragic death.

In Part 2, we will deal with their story of survival and O’Reilly’s amazing role in their eventual rescue.

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