As aerobats, their job was to follow their leader through intricate manoeuvres, doing exactly as he did.
An R.A.A.F. spokesman said tonight that this discipline was the key to successful team flying.
He said the leader was the only one who could see where the formation was going. The others had to watch his tail, without a chance to read their instruments or look around.
SHEETS OF FLAME SHOT UP
The four jets took off at 1.45 p.m. from East Sale, 134 miles east of Melbourne.
They crashed about 10 miles from the base, at 2.45 p.m., after completing a variety of manoeuvres.
Flying wreckage narrowly missed a woman and several children in a sedan car.
She braked to avoid wreckage ploughing across the roadway.
All in the car were upset by the scene and the woman drove away without giving her name to men who rushed to the area.
A former R.A.A.F. wartime pilot, Mr Noel Wadsley, of Sale, saw the crash.
He said that the Vampires passed over him, flying at only a few hundred feet and heading straight towards a slightly timbered gentle rise.
“Being a pilot myself, I thought that they were very low, and stopped my truck as they passed overhead to watch them,” Mr Wadsley said.
“In Perfect Formation”
“They were in perfect formation. They seemed to head straight for the top of the rise — and plunged straight into it.
“Sheets of flame shot up and spread over a wide area — but died down after a few seconds.
“At the last second one plane, I could not tell which one, moved slightly out of formation — apparently trying to gain height, but it was too late.
“He hit the ground just a short distance from the others.
“They appeared to hit the ground at a 45-degree angle flying at right angles to the Dutson Road, along which I was driving.
“Except for the one plane, they were in perfect formation when they hit.
“It was a horrifying experience, for having been a pilot I knew what I was going, to see when I arrived at the crash scene.”
“Skidded Into Fence”
The first men on the scene were two P.M.G. linesmen, Mr Gordon Jackson and Mt Ken Oliver, who were working a few hundred yards away.
Mr Jackson said the planes seemed to explode into the ground.
Mr W. McNaughton, owner of the sheep and cattle property on which the planes crashed, said he saw the four Vampires fly over several times before the tragedy. “But I didn’t actually see them hit,” he said.
“I heard a terrific bang and a tearing noise.
“I rushed to the scene in my car, but there wasn’t much anybody could do.
“The four planes appeared to have hit simultaneously then skidded about 200yds across my paddock before crashing through a concrete and steel fence.
Brought Down Wires
“They broke up as they ploughed across Letts Beach Road and brought down high voltage wires.”
A Sale photographer, Ronald Gorman, was at the scene within 30 minutes or the tragedy.
He said it was impossible to tell how many planes had crashed.
“Small pieces of metal were scattered over half a square mile and no piece was bigger than a table top,” he said.
“After hitting the ground the jets brought down electrical wires which were scattered around the wreckage.
“You would have to see the scene to believe just how terrible it was.”
First news of the tragedy reached the R.A.A.F. Base at East Sale from Flight-Lieut. G. Hibben, pilot of a Dakota aircraft from the Central Flying School .
Flight-Lieut. Hibben was on a routine training flight when he saw a flash and smoke coming from the ground near the Dutson Road.
He flew over the area and saw the wreckage of the four planes.
Within 20 minutes of the crash, R.A.A.F. personnel from East Sale were at the scene examining the wreckage.
The bodies were taken by R.A.A.F. ambulance to the Gippsland Base Hospital mortuary at Sale.
Late tonight police and Air Force personnel were manning road blocks on either side of the crash and about a dozen Air Force personnel were on guard in the immediate vicinity of the wreckage.
A full R.A.A.F. investigation into the cause of the crash began shortly after 8 p.m. when Wing Commander F. J. Inger, the Director of Flying Safety for the R.A.A.F., arrived at East Sale from Canberra aboard a Dakota.
Investigations will continue throughout the night and a full team of experts will be on the job early tomorrow morning.
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After news of the crash was released R.A.A.F. headquarters in Melbourne vas flooded with phone calls from relatives and friends of R.A.A.F. pilots.
It was almost five hours after the crash before the names of the dead were released.
