NG Crash Kills Two
p. 22 · Read in the full issue
A Mandated Airlines Ltd.
Norseman—a single-e ngined, high-winged plane, taken over from Gibbes Airways in 1958 — crashed into thick jungle, at a height of 7,500 feet, late on De cember 17, while on a routine flight from Minj to Mendi (in the NG Highlands, about 60 miles apart).
Pilot Desmond Gleeson, 35, of Melbourne, who joined MAL only last July, and his one passenger , a native, were killed.
The cause of the crash, which occurred only one mile from Kuli Mission Airstrip, is not known.
Air and ground searches con tinued for three days before the wreckage was found. “Bobby”
Gibbes, now a resident of NSW, was at his Highlands coffee plantation on December 17 and, piloting a Cessna, he joined in the widespread search.