Email: gavin@findlostaircraft.co.nz

The position of the radar fade shown on the Sydney radar screen, covers quite a large area - the circled spot covering an area of 10 nm, and this search area is just on the edge of that circle. Like I said previously, whoever drew these circles on the radar chart I believe was just generalising the area and the track between the two, and would have been going by memory... not actually plotting it as it happened. Presumably the ATCO who stated it was approximately 5 nm east of Craven was the same person that drew these objects on this chart, yet 5 nm east (magnetic), is also outside the circled area.

Although this search area is the most probable, I do have one major reservation with it. If MDX had gone in there, it would have hit at over two hundred knots, and with all the fuel that was on board, there would have been a huge explosion and an awful big fire... and yet no-one in the big search after the event reported a fire on this hillside? I cropped a section off this chart and overlaid it on Google Earth out of interest:

If this is accurate, then maybe MDX did stray off to the left of this track? Who really knows?

As just previously said, my best guess is that the circle was just a bit of an educated guess (going by  by the memory of the Controller) of the general area. There is another possibility of a crash site, and this is due to further possibilities that I eluded to earlier.

Maybe the ice did melt and he was able to fly a fair way further before he crashed – and if he did recover, then why did he crash?

The answer to this possibility is found in Glenn's calculation that once under 5800 ft, MDX was no longer able to be picked up on radar.  For instance...What if either of these two scenarios happened:   

1/ He managed to pull out of the descent but in his blind panic to get back up to the safe height of 6000', he stalled and spun it into the ground?

2/ He managed to pull out of the descent but in the process exceeded Vne (Never Exceed Speed) and in the extreme turbulence at the lower altitude, the aircraft broke up in flight in the very rough area closer to the ground?

Why have I drawn both of these crash site possibilities in the same area?  Read on to find out!

MDX pg 25