Olinda’s Macarthur Job has released a book on the mysterious Southern Cloud crash from the 1930’s.
By Tania Martin
OLINDA’S aviation expert Macarthur Job has realised a 52-year dream – to release a book on the mysterious Southern Cloud air crash disaster.
He said it was great to finally release the book, ‘Into Oblivion the Southern Cloud Enigma’.
The 84-year-old got the idea for the book when he was a flying doctor pilot in the 1950s.
“I was sitting in my aircraft waiting for the medical people to finish their clinic when the idea came to me,” Mr Job said.
“I had been fascinated with it (the crash) because I was only a small child when it happened and I remember my grandfather telling me about it.”
Mr Job said when the idea to write the book came to him, the wreckage had not been uncovered.
But not long after, the crash site was discovered in 1958.
“That shot down my idea for a book in flames,” Mr Job said.
The crash happened on 21 March 1931, when the Southern Cloud VH-UMF disappeared somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne. An extensive air and ground search throughout south-eastern Australia failed to locate the aeroplane.
Mr Job put his dream aside to write the story – but it was reborn again in the early ’70s with the 40th anniversary of the crash.
At the time, he was working in the air safety investigation branch for the Department of Civil Aviation and was also editing a pilot magazine.
“There had also been a spate of similar modern accidents of people running into hillsides and clouds,” Mr Job said.
“It was interesting to see they were still having the same problems after more than 40 years.”
Mr Job wrote about the issue extensively as part of a magazine spread commemorating the 40th anniversary.
After collecting all the information for the magazine, the idea for the book once again resurfaced.
“I wrote to a publisher but they didn’t want a book on just one accident, but all these significant Australian crashes, which I did,” Mr Job said.
So the Southern Cloud tale got pushed to the bottom of the pile again.
Mr Job said it wasn’t until he helped Ferntree Gully book publisher and author Nick Anchen with the release of a book on the Mount Dandenong Kyeema air crash disaster that the idea for Southern Cloud book resurfaced.
“I still buried it under mountains of papers…I have polished it up, the bones were already laid a long time ago,” he said.
“I had always hoped I could dedicate a book to this crash, because it was such a fascinating story. People always wondered what had happened, it was a recurring mystery something, like the Titanic.”
“It’s exciting to finally have it in print…it has fulfilled a long-term dream of mine,” Mr Job said. The book is available by logging onto www.sierraaustralia.com or by calling Mr Anchen on 0405 530 323.
