Well, you’ve heard about it by now, I’m sure. A Cheetah S200 ultralight has crashed into a ferris wheel at Old Bar, near Taree, NSW, on Saturday.
Reports of what happened are conflicting. Some say the aircraft was taking off, some say it was going around. One even said that it was landing. Difficult to imagine, since the ferris wheel was located at the southern end of the field and the prevailing winds were from the south. Perhaps a missed approach?
Well, whatever … there were two people in the aircraft, and two children trapped on the ferris wheel until rescue teams could get them down. Fire services sprayed foam on the site as fuel was leaking such that there was risk of a fire.
Old Bar is a nice little grass field not far from Taree – a convenient “comfort stop” if you’re enroute from Northern NSW or Queensland to Sydney or points beyond. In days past, (before IFR) Old Bar was a regular stop for airlines doing the SYD-BNE-SYD run. You’ll join me, I’m sure, in hoping that the accident has no detrimental effect on the attitudes of locals to the presence of the field.
The great news, of course, is that no-one was hurt.
