Herald Sun, Edition 2. Up In The Air 1998
Written by AYR ADMIN   
Friday, 07 April 2006
Herald Sun, Edition 2
SAT 22 AUG 1998, Page 004

UP IN THE AIR
By NICK RICHARDSON   

It is nearly 20 years since Fred Valentich and his plane disappeared
over Bass Strait. Was a UFO involved? NICK RICHARDSON reports IT WAS
a clear and cool evening. The cloud was high and streaky.
There was only a light wind. Visibility was excellent.
Any pilot would know that it was a perfect night for flying.
Frederick Valentich, a 20-year-old from suburban Avondale Heights,
was piloting a rented single-engine Cessna 182 from Moorabbin Airport
across Bass Strait to King Island.
Valentich was alone. He was trying to build up his flying hours for
his commercial licence and was on his way across Bass Strait to King
Island.
Valentich reached Cape Otway, the southern point of Victoria, at 7pm.
The end of daylight was only 18 minutes away and Valentich's arrival
on King Island was scheduled for just after 7.30pm.
But somewhere between the darkness and King Island, Valentich and his
plane vanished.
That was almost 20 years ago. No debris, no wreckage, no sign of the
plane or its pilot has ever been found.
"The reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been
determined," the official Department of Transport report says.
The only clue is contained in Valentich's final chilling conversation
with Melbourne Airport's Flight Services Unit just moments before he
disappeared.
". . . that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again . . . it
is hovering and it is not an aircraft," Valentich told operator Steve
Robey.
There was an unexplained metallic sound and the transmission abruptly
stopped.
What happened to Frederick Valentich remains Australia's most
intriguing aviation mystery. There have been plenty of theories,
ranging from an elaborate hoax to a tragic suicide. One theory claims
Valentich became disoriented, flew upside down and fell from the sky.
Another suggests he was an unwitting casualty of a secret-weapons
test.
And then there is the abiding suspicion that Valentich was being
followed by a UFO.
After two decades no one is any closer to knowing what happened on
October 21, 1978. For the Valentich family, the pain of their son and
brother's disappearance has never fully abated. They have lost
friends, been inundated with crank calls and had ugly allegations
they sold their story to the media.
Such claims are false, of course. But then again, truth is the enemy
of a mystery and there is no bigger riddle than Valentich's
disappearance.
The Valentich family is reluctant to talk about the episode after all
this time, but Guido, Frederick's father, remains interested in any
new developments in the case.
The rest of the family - mother Alberta, a son, Richard, and twin
daughters Olivia and Lara - are not as keen to publicly explore it
all again.
Yet the Valentichs have an unshakeable belief that what happened to
their eldest son cannot be explained on the existing evidence.
Guido, who had accompanied his son on some flights, felt secure with
him. He recalls Frederick's overwhelming keenness to fly.
Frederick joined the Air Training Corps when he was 15 and had
accumulated 200 flying hours before the King Island trip.
He saved hard for his flying lessons and in the months before his
King Island flight, worked part-time in a Moonee Ponds disposal store.
He worked there on the Saturday morning before he drove to Moorabbin
for a three-hour meteorology course.
What happened next has been pieced together from a variety of people.
Valentich submitted his flight plan - as usual - to the airport
authorities for a night-time flight to King Island and return.
It would take him 41 minutes from Moorabbin to Cape Otway and a
further 28 minutes to the island. Valentich had enough fuel for a 300-
minute flight.
The plan seemed clear enough. But there were, in retrospect, some
unusual problems. Although he submitted his flight plan at 5.23pm,
Valentich did not leave until 6.19pm.
Nor did he alert King Island airport that he would be arriving later
than intended and that it should turn on its night lighting.
Valentich had also told his girlfriend, Rhonda Rushton, he would pick
her up at her home in East Preston for dinner at 7pm, when he would
clearly have been en-route to King Island.
Thirdly, he had far more fuel than he needed for what was essentially
a short haul.
But such questions become secondary to what happened next.
Six minutes after Valentich passed over Cape Otway, he made contact
with Robey at the Melbourne's Flight Service Unit.
At first, Valentich sounded calm, if not intrigued, when he asked if
there was "any known traffic below five thousand (feet)".
Valentich had spotted something with four bright lights that was
zooming a thousand feet above him.
It seemed to be playing with him, flying over the Cessna two or three
times, but even then Valentich could not describe the craft to Robey.
For five minutes Valentich tried to tell Robey what was happening
while the unknown craft circled him and then disappeared. He started
to sound concerned.
At 7.11pm, Valentich told Robey that his engine had started to play
up. It was rough idling and coughing, but he said he intended to push
on to King Island.
Then the mysterious craft returned. For 17 seconds there was an open
transmission between the Cessna and Melbourne, but nothing was said.
Then, at 7.12:49pm, the line went dead. There has been nothing since.
Witnesses from Cape Otway told of strange green lights in the night
sky and local Roy Manifold took photographs that appear to capture an
unidentified object in the sky.
A former NASA research scientist, Dr Richard Haines, investigated the
disappearance and believes Valentich did not say the unidentified
craft was "stationary" - as the transcript of Valentich's
conversation states - but that it was "chasing me".
That interpretation adds a sinister undertone to the whole mystery.
Robey rules out suicide or that Valentich became disoriented because
the pilot kept up a lucid conversation. And the Cessna 182 could not
fly upside down.
"I believe the aircraft is in Bass Strait, but we'll never really
know (how)," Robey says.
For his part, Guido does not discount a UFO, but remains confused.
Even the official processes seem to have been cloaked in a web of
mystery. It took 21/2 years for the Department of Transport to
release its official report. And it took 10 years for the Valentich
family to get access to Frederick's bank account.
The tape has also been controversial - some maintain that Valentich's
final transmission was edited for final release, but Robey denies it.
Twenty years on, Guido still clings to a vague hope that somewhere,
out there, is an answer to Frederick's disappearance.
But who would know? *
LAST CONTACT
AN edited transcript of the conversation between Fred Valentich in VH-
DSJ and Melbourne's Flight Service Unit on October 21, 1978.
1906:14: VALENTICH: Is there any known traffic below five thousand?
1906:23: FSU: No known traffic
1906:26: VALENTICH: Seems (to) be a large aircraft below five thousand
1906:46: FSU: What type of aircraft is it?
1906:50: VALENTICH: I cannot affirm it is four bright . . . it seems
to me like . . . landing lights . . .
1907:43: FSU: Roger. And it is a large aircraft? Confirm
1907:47: VALENTICH: Er, unknown due to the speed it's travelling. Is
there any airforce aircraft in the vicinity?
1907:57: FSU: No known aircraft in the vicinity
1908:18: VALENTICH: It's approaching now from due east towards me
(open microphone for two seconds) . . . he's playing some sort of
game, he's flying over me two, three times at a time at speeds I
could not identify . . .
1909:11: FSU: and confirm you cannot identify the aircraft . . .?
1909:28: VALENTICH: It's not an aircraft, it is . . .
1909:46: FSU: Can you describe the, er, aircraft?
1909:52: VALENTICH: As it's flying past it's a long shape . . . it
has such speed (open microphone for three seconds) . . . before me
right now, Melbourne
1910:07: FSU: Roger and how large would the, er, object be?
1910:20: VALENTICH: It seems like it's stationary . . . the thing is
just orbiting on top of me. Also it's got a green light and sort of
metallic (like) it's all shiny (on) the outside
1910:43: FSU: DELTA SIERRA JULlET
1910:48: VALENTICH: It's just vanished . . . would you know what kind
of aircraft I've got? Is it (a type of) military aircraft?
1911:08: FSU: Confirm the, er, aircraft just vanished . . . is the
aircraft still with you?
1911:23: VALENTICH: It's, ah, nor . . . now approaching from the
south-west
1911:37: FSU: DELTA SIERRA JULIET
1911:52: VALENTICH: The engine is, is, rough idling. I've got it set
at twenty-three, twenty-four, and the thing is (coughing)
1912:04: FSU: Roger, what are your intentions?
1912:09: VALENTICH: My intentions are, ah, to go to King Island. Ah,
Melbourne, that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again . . .
it is hovering and it's not an aircraft
1912:22: FSU: DELTA SIERRA JULIET
1912:28: VALENTICH: DELTA SIERRA JULIET MELBOURNE (17 seconds open
microphone)
1912:49: FSU: DELTA SIERRA JULIET MELBOURNE
There was no further transmission from Fred Valentich's aircraft.
END OF STORY
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