Those who watched Sunday Night on Channel 7 on, not unsurprisingly, Sunday night last week, will have seen a story about documentary filmmaker Damien Lay claiming to have tracked down the final resting place of the aeroplane in which Sir Charles Kingsford Smith disappeared, the Lady Southern Cross.
Kingsford-Smith disappeared over the Andaman Sea south of Burma with co-pilot John Thompson "Tommy" Pethybridge in November 1935, while flying from India to Singapore on his way home from England. The only trace of the plane ever found was a Lockheed Altair starboard undercarriage leg recovered with a still-inflated tyre in May 1937. It was found by Burmese fishermen near Aye Island, south of Rangoon.
Lay claims to have found the plane using sonar imaging. He says that it is under 1.5 metres of mud. The thick mud and zero visibility make it difficult to assess the claim and Lay has his detractors.
What is of more interest than Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s death is his life, which few of us know beyond the fact that he is the face on the $20 note, that Sydney’s airport is named after him and that he did something famous to do with flying.
