In The Courier this week

Pilot Grant Gilbert made a series of low level manoeuvres in low visibility on his approach to the Mt Gambier airport on June 28, 2017. This CCTV image shows him making an unsuccessful landing attempt at 10.06am before finally landing two minutes later. After his two passengers had boarded, the aircraft took off and crashed upside down about a minute into the flight when the pilot became disorientated in the fog.

Pilot took a chance on weather

A report into the fatal plane crash that took the lives of three people in Mt Gambier two years ago has found that the Mt Barker pilot took off in conditions for which he was not accredited.
Released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) yesterday (Tuesday), the report found that pilot Grant Gilbert was not qualified or experienced to fly in the low visibility conditions in Mt Gambier on June 28, 2017.
The weather caused the pilots of two commercial passenger flights to delay landing at the airport at around the same time.
A prominent businessman and former Mt Barker Councillor, Mr Gilbert was a volunteer with the medical transport charity Angel Flight and was donating both his time and Socata TB-10 Tobago to fly 16-year-old Emily Redding and her mother, Tracy, to a medical appointment in Adelaide.

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Also in this week’s issue

  • Dive bomber: Most 14-year-olds enjoy paddling around in the pool on a hot day or making an almighty splash with a running dive bomb, but Dakota Gordon likes to make his entry into the water a little more gracefully.

  • Immunisation warning: When Paul Goodfellow came down with what he believed was a bout of gastro in 2013, he never imagined he’d end up in the Flinders Medical Centre intensive care unit in an induced coma.

  • Tunnel plan: A proposal to divert trucks away from suburban roads via a multi-billion dollar tunnel from the freeway to South Road will not improve the increasingly dangerous levels of freeway congestion, the head of the local Regional Development Australia branch believes.

  • Kitchen designer: A family-owned Strathalbyn kitchen and joinery business has made a clean sweep across all the SA kitchen categories at recent national bathroom and kitchen awards.

  • Gumeracha drowning: A 95-year-old woman has drowned on a private property in Gumeracha over the weekend. Family members found the body of the woman in a culvert on Sunday morning.