Canberra air disaster, 1940
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The Canberra air disaster of 1940 was a plane crash that took place near Canberra, the capital of Australia, on 13 August 1940, during World War II. Three members of the Australian Cabinet, Air Minister James Fairbairn, Information Minister Sir Henry Gullett and Army Minister Brigadier Geoffrey Street, were killed, along with the Chief of the General Staff of the Australian Army, General Sir Brudenell White, two other passengers and four Royal Australian Air Force personnel. The deaths of the three ministers severely weakened the United Australia Party government of Robert Menzies and contributed to its fall in 1941.
The causes of the crash have always been a mystery, although there has never been any suggestion of enemy action or sabotage. The crash took place at 10.15 in the morning in fine weather, in what the Melbourne Herald called "ideal flying conditions." The ministers and General White were being flown from Melbourne to Canberra for a Cabinet meeting on an RAAF Lockheed Hudson bomber flown by an experienced RAAF officer, Flight-Lieutenant Robert Hitchcock. But Fairbairn had served in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I and still enjoyed flying. It has always been suspected that he may have persuaded the RAAF crew to allow him to fly the plane into Canberra. More recently the RAAF Historian C. D. Coulthard-Clark, in his book The Third Brother, called into question the flying ability of the pilot-in-command, Flt-Lt Hitchcock. An account of his comments can be read in the book Air Crash vol. 2 by noted Australian aviation writer Macarthur Job (Aerospace Publications, Canberra 1992).
The Herald reported: "The plane was seen by watchers at the Canberra Aerodrome and Air Force station to circle the drome, and then rise and head south. It disappeared behind a low tree-dotted hill. There was an explosion and a sheet of flame, followed by a dense cloud of smoke... The Canberra Fire Brigade and ambulances from Queanbeyan and Canberra, as well as several Air Force tenders, arrived soon afterwards and fire extinguishers were played on the blazing wreckage. After about half-an-hour, when the blaze had died down, it was seen that the entire undercarriage, wings and structural supports of the plane had been torn away and were a smouldering mass in which were the charred bodies of those on board."
Two other Cabinet ministers, Senator George McLeay and Arthur Fadden, leader of the Country Party, had intended to fly to Canberra on the same flight, but for personal reasons decided to travel by train instead.
The Court of Inquiry into the accident found that it was most likely due to the aircraft stalling on its landing approach, resulting in loss of control at a height too low to recover. The aircraft crashed into a hill with great force, killing all occupants instantly, then burning. Since the crash was near the RAAF base, emergency crews were at the scene promptly, but nothing could be done to save the occupants.
In 1941 the RAAF base at Canberra was named Fairbairn Airbase in Fairbairn's honour. Two of the ministers were later followed into federal politics by their sons, Jo Gullett and Tony Street. After the war a memorial cairn was erected at the site.
Menzies was deeply affected by the crash, both personally and politically. "This was a dreadful calamity," he told the House of Representatives the next day. "For my three colleagues were my close and loyal friends. Each of them had a place not only in the Cabinet but in my heart." Although Menzies was not in fact close to Fairbairn personally or politically, Street and Gullett were among his closest supporters, and Gullett was a trusted senior adviser. When Menzies attended a memorial gathering at the site in 1960, 20 years after the crash, he was seen to be still very emotional in recalling the day.
In the wake of the loss of three senior Cabinet ministers, Menzies was forced to reshuffle his ministry. But the Cabinet was permanently weakened by the loss of three senior ministers, and this was one factor which undermined Menzies's position in the following months. One of those promoted was Harold Holt, who was recalled from Army service, thus getting a promotion which led eventually to the prime ministership.
Because the crash took place only a month before the September 1940 federal elections, no by-elections were held. At the elections, Fairbairn's seat of Flinders and Street's seat of Corangamite were retained by the UAP, but Gullett's seat of Henty was lost to an independent, Arthur Coles, who in 1941 was one of the two independents who crossed the floor to bring the government down and allow John Curtin to become Prime Minister.
