Rescue crews arrive at the wreckage of a vintage plane missing since Monday. Photo: Channel Nine
The son of a Brisbane pilot undertook the heavy task of calling his family and friends to tell them his father had died, after the wreckage of his vintage red plane was uncovered in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
The De Havilland DH84 Dragon was found three days after it went missing carrying pilot Des Porter, 68, his wife Kath and their good friends John and Carol Dawson, both 63, and Les D'evlin, 75, and his wife Janice D'evlin, 61.
The Porters and Dawsons were from Tingalpa and the D'evlins lived in Manly West.
The wreckage of a plane crash that claimed six lives.
As Mr Porter's friend and Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokesman Mike Barton described aviation as a "cruel child", Scott Porter was calling family and friends to say the plane had been found and there were no survivors.
Des Porter owned a mechanic business in Wynnum and his employee of 13 years, Bryan Banner, was one of the people Scott called yesterday.
"He told us as soon as they told him," Mr Banner said.
Des Porter with the restored bi-plane which was used in the 1930s by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Photo: Nicola Brander, Caboolture News
"He is not very good."
The accident that killed Mr Porter and his crew holds a tragic symmetry with the deaths in 1954 of his father, Stan, and older brother, Keith, who was 13 years old at the time.
Mr Porter was 11 when he boarded a De Havilland DH84 Dragon – the same model of plane he would die in 58 years later – to help scatter the ashes of his father's friend.
The plane's wing clipped a tree and cartwheeled into a creek in which his father and brother drowned.
Mr Porter was pulled from the plane by rescuers as the water rose to his chin.
"(Des Porter) told police yesterday that he could only remember the water gushing into the plane cabin. He had no recollection of the crash," the Brisbane Telegraph reported at the time.
"Mr Porter's brother-in-law, Mr. W.G.Young, of Tingalpa, said the boy was waking up from sedatives a doctor had given him and crying for his father."
Mr Banner's father was friends with Keith and he and Des Porter were mates throughout Mr Banner's youth.
"(Mr Porter) was pretty good, he would go out of his way to help you out," he said.
"I had a bit of trouble with a car accident I had and he loaned me one of his cars to get around in."
Conceding the mood at the mechanic shop was "not very good", Mr Banner said the entire street had pitched in the past few days to help out the flagging employees.
He said most people would describe Mr Porter as a "top bloke".
Mr Porter regularly flew the vintage plane with his wife and four friends and the group had been returning from the Monto Fly-In, where he had been selling joy rides to raise money for charity.
The alarm was raised on Monday when the Red Dragon did not arrive at Caboolture Airport at 2.15pm.
At 1pm, a Nine News Helicopter had picked up a distress call from the plane and the last conversation Mr Porter had with someone outside of the plane was about radio frequencies.
AGL Action Rescue Helicopter crewman Rick Harvey radioed Mr Porter after his distress call and asked him to change his radio frequency to 125.5 because their conversation was scattered.
"The last thing I heard him say was, 'Roger that, now changing to 125.5'," Mr Harvey told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
"At the time I didn't realise we had lost contact."
The emergency beacon on the plane was activated about 2.30pm on Monday afternoon but was not detected again.
The search effort started with seven helicopters and one aeroplane on Monday afternoon and, by yesterday afternoon, 10 more helicopters and another plane had been called in.
Just before 2pm, a helicopter search crew spotted a glimmer of red through the dense bushland 14 kilometres northwest of Borumba Dam, an area which was likely searched the day before.
They radioed two AGL Rescue Action helicopters which had to land 200 metres away and hike to the site of the wreckage.
They reported no survivors.
AMSA spokesman Mike Barton said he put his feelings about searching for his friend "aside" while he got the job done.
"Aviation can be a cruel child, you only have to make small mistakes and it will catch up with you," Mr Barton said.
"We don't know what happened with this one so we'll wait for the deliberations of the transport safety bureau."
He said the aircraft had been "fundamentally destroyed" and would not have been recognisable as a plane when search crews found it.
"It was always our hope today that we would find this site and we would find survivors but unfortunately that's not the case," he said.
"It is disturbing. I personally knew the pilot, so yeah, he had a very wide group of friends and I think the antique air community are going to be quite upset that they lost him, and certainly the friends and relations of the other occupants."
People took to social networks to grieve yesterday with one man saying Mr Porter had saved him from buying a dodgy car.
"You're a legend with a spanner in your hand and you will leave a giant hole in the motoring and aviation hearts of southeast Queensland, especially Wynnum and Caboolture," he wrote on Facebook.
Another posted: "A damned shame and great loss to the aviation community. Our thoughts are with the families. Rest in peace Des."
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