Light plane crash

On December 29th a Cessna 172 with the pilot and a yachting photographer was off Port Arthur taking pictures of Sidney - Hobart boats. This is the southern most headland of Tasmania that the boats round. One of the boats observed the plane, which was flying at low altitude, climb and then dive into the sea. The boat immediately sent out a "Mayday". Both those on board drowned. There was a lot of local media coverage and the day we left Hobart the police were hauling the plane to the surface with the two bodies in it when the cable broke. They were going to try again with better equipment. A sad story for the S-H race. Having piloted Cessna 172s in the 1980s my guess is that the pilot stalled the plane at low altitude and was unable to recover.