Caribou mud-bound in Waihi

[Dave Homewood]

From the Press, 23 September 1986

Caribou mud-bound in Waihi

Special correspondent in Auckland

An Australian Air Force transport plane is stuck in the mud at a paddock near Waihi Beach.

The 12,700 kg Caribou tactical transport plane came to a sticky stop on Sunday as its crew practised landing on "semi-prepared” airstrips. The landing was fine, but then came that sinking feeling.

Squadron Leader Dave Innes, normally based in Richmond in New South Wales but now stuck with his eight-man crew in a Waihi motel, explained yesterday how the giant aircraft came to be sitting amongst the Waihi greenery. The short-range tactical transport Caribou had flown to New Zealand specifically to train on such airstrips. On Sunday, the day after the crew arrived, the squadron leader took off with his men from Whenuapai and headed for Waihi Beach.

With 1000 hours flying Caribous in Vietnam, Squadron Leader Innes was no stranger to sticky landings. He cast a wary eye down on the semi-prepared strip and decided to test the evident moisture on the ground with what he calls a “touch and go” manoeuvre.

The Caribou was touched down and immediately powered-off again so two crewmen posted at the rear of the aircraft could note how far the wheels had dug in to the surface. Armed with their observations, Squadron Leader Innes elected to land. The touchdown was a breeze. A turn and taxi-ing followed smoothly.

But then the wheels of the aircraft dug firmly into the mud — about 20cm down. Rather than attempt to take-off in what he considered were “dubious circumstances” the pilot elected to leave the hulking plane where it was.

“It was a traumatic introduction,” he said yesterday of his first landing on a semi-prepared New Zealand airstrip. “It is hard to assess just how good a surface is from 300 feet”

While the plane, which has a 30-metre wingspan, sat in the mud on Sunday and yesterday, the grounded crew pondered ways to resume the flight. Squadron Leader Innes said as much weight as possible would be removed from the Caribou before an attempt was made to lift off some time this morning.

This will mean that some of the crew will have to go to their forward destination by ground transport.

He said it was obvious now that the “touch and go” manoeuvre had not provided an accurate guide to ground conditions as the plane was travelling at 160km/h throughout.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force spokesman, Squadron Leader Hank Moffatt, said last evening that the Caribou pilot had advised the R.N.Z.A.F. on Sunday that the flight would be delayed for 48 hours until the air strip dried out

The Australians had not asked for any assistance and were expected to fly to Wigram air base today.

[johnnyfalcon]

I'd like to see a photo!

[davidd]

I imagine that the eight-man crew referred to in paragraph 3 was actually the "crew" plus a few passengers. Don't really know what the "standard" normal flight crew of a Caribou would be at the time, but my undeducated guess would be maybe three or four, maximum five.

Addition: Wikipedia (from Janes AWA I think) states crew as 2 x pilots, plus Loadmaster, so make what you will of this. Presume this was the standard for US Army aircraft (who operated most of the Caribous built, Australia had about 29), and indicates that specialized navigators and wireless operators were more or less redundant by this time.

[FlyingKiwi]

If that's the current Waihi Beach airstrip that would certainly have been a challenging operation.

[thomarse]

Yes remember this well, and yes, it’s the current Waihi Beach strip

What I don’t recall is how long it was a resident…

[tbf2504]

David,
normal crew on the ones that I flew on for exercise Shorthaul was two pilots, an engineer and a loadmaster. The engineer was assigned to the crew for the deployment so during normal operations may not have been carried.

[davidd]

Thanks for that Paul, adds to the picture.

[aeromedia]

I recall this situation clearly. We lived in the Bay of Plenty at the time and I came across this large aircraft sitting rather inappropriately in the Waihi Beach landscape. First thought it was a retired airframe someone had acquired but soon realised upon getting closer what had happened. Quite surreal at the time.

[Mustang51]

We had one doing short field landings at Camden back in the day. Did about three that were getting shorter and shorter until it landed hard and caused massive damage. Just goes to prove that you can break a Caribou

[Dave Homewood]

The Press, 24 September 1986

Aircraft escapes soft strip

A Royal Australian Air Force Caribou transport plane arrived at Wigram yesterday after being extricated from a boggy airstrip near Waihi where it had been stuck since Sunday.

The plane and its crew of nine are in New Zealand on a training exercise, practising short-approach landings on semi-prepared strips. Its unscheduled stay at Waihi began when the crew decided to land at the strip in spite of soggy ground after overnight rain.

The crew first tried a touch-and-go approach, setting the plane down without stopping so that they could try to gauge the softness of the surface by the depth of the wheelmarks.

“It looked quite reasonable; there were no really obvious marks on the field," said Squadron Leader David Innes later. But in the event, the plane sank about 20cm into the ground. Excess cargo was removed and sent by bus to Mount Maunganui, while the crew waited for the strip to dry. The plane took off safely yesterday morning, picked up the cargo, and continued the exercise.

The Caribou arrived at Wigram late yesterday afternoon after a flight punctuated by further practice landings at out-of-the-way airstrips. The plane will take off at 9 a.m. today for landings at Puketiro, Milford Sound, Makarora, and Birch Hill, then back to Wigram. Tomorrow, it will fly to Whenuapai, then home to Richmond air base in Sydney on Friday.

[McFly]

Here's a good video of a 'Bou' getting stuck on a soft strip after a flapless landing...!!

[Mustang51]

That was the machine in "Flight of the Kee Bird". Flat front tyre....easy, just fill it up with propane - what could possibly go wrong.........