Article
BAMOS May 2026
17
by telegram delivery at about 10:30 am, his worst fears were confirmed. A major cold front had indeed whipped across southeastern Australia overnight, and raging winds from the west and southwest were surging up into New South Wales( NSW) from Victoria.
Cold fronts of this nature are more common in the winter months, but can occur at any time of the year, and are sometimes referred to as“ cold outbreaks”. They are weather systems that drag cold polar air from the far Southern Ocean over southeastern Australia and can produce highland snow, even during the summer months. For aviation, cold outbreaks can generate a whole raft of hazards, including very strong winds, severe turbulence, icing and reduced visibility in low cloud and rain.
Upon seeing the Victorian telegram, Camm immediately telephoned ANA’ s management and spoke directly with Charles Ulm, who had gained previous fame as Kingsford Smith’ s copilot during the late 1920s.
Camm informed Ulm that the weather situation was far worse than originally forecast and that the Southern Cloud was probably encountering cyclonic weather with tremendous headwinds, severe turbulence, rain and even snow.
However, as the two men talked, they both knew that with the flight now over two hours old and with no way of contacting the aircraft, there was absolutely nothing they could do with this vital information. At this time, far away to the south-west, across the wild peaks and ravines of the Great Dividing Range, the Southern Cloud would have been bucking into turbulent headwinds, rain squalls and low clouds in a desperate battle for survival.
Harold Camm standing beside a map and equipment at the Weather Bureau, New South Wales, 15 October 1929. Credit: Fairfax collection of glass plate negatives
A grim wait began to see if the aircraft had landed anywhere, firstly at its scheduled refuelling point near Wangaratta, and then at any other airfield where they might have attempted to take shelter from the raging conditions. The nature of the front indicated that extremely strong winds from the southwest were right across the flight path, and the Southern Cloud would be struggling directly into these, slowing its ground speed dramatically. So, at best, a late arrival was expected, but when the time of fuel exhaustion had well passed, it was realised that something terrible must have happened. A massive land and air search was launched and continued for several weeks afterwards, but no trace of the Southern Cloud was found.
A formal inquiry was convened soon after by the Air Accident Investigation Committee, and the final report contained a significant recommendation regarding the Bureau of Meteorology. This concerned the necessity for more frequent updates of meteorological observations and synoptic weather charts, as well as the establishment of a forecast amendment service. Just as significantly, the report recommended that all passenger aircraft should be equipped with two-way radios. Ground radio stations should also be established to communicate with all passenger aircraft and to monitor progress towards their destinations.
The loss of the Southern Cloud was Australia’ s first major civil aviation accident and had a devastating effect on aviation services in general. ANA went out of business later in 1931, and public confidence in air travel fell sharply. It only gradually recovered over a period of several years thereafter.
But remarkably, the story of the Southern Cloud was not over. Twenty-seven years later, in 1958, a worker in the Snowy Mountains, Tom Sonter, stumbled across some strange, rusty metallic wreckage in a wild, inaccessible part of the Kosciuszko National Park. Closer examination revealed the presence of highly fragmented skeletal human remains.
The Southern Cloud had at last been found, and from its position, a more accurate reconstruction of the flight was attempted. An amazing picture emerged. The aircraft had only managed to cover a distance of 353 km from Sydney, and if the flying time was calculated on a full tank of fuel, that represented an average speed of only 71 kph. As the cruising speed of the Avro was around 160 kph, this pointed to average headwinds of about 90 kph – a vindication of Camm’ s telephone warning to Ulm all those years before. In fact, because the early part of the flight had been conducted in far lighter conditions, the strength of the headwinds was probably much greater than this; it was even theorised that the Southern Cloud could have been blown backwards during the final minutes of flight.
A certain amount of speculation still surrounds the direct cause of the crash. Did the aircraft ice up, were they forced down by severe turbulence, or did they attempt to descend below the cloud base in the belief that they were nearing Melbourne? This latter scenario is perhaps the most credible, as it is unlikely that Shortridge would have realised the strength of the headwinds opposing the aircraft. Perhaps it was some combination of all these, but the precise answer can never be known.
Today, a memorial for the Southern Cloud stands near Cooma, NSW, containing pieces from the three radial engines. It is a reminder of the price that has been paid in the quest for safety in aviation.
* Some idea of the intensity of the front can be gauged from the maximum temperatures recorded in Melbourne. On Friday, 20 March, the day before the flight, the maximum was 26.3 ° C, but the next day, following the passage of the front, it only reached 12 ° C. This remains the lowest maximum temperature recorded in Melbourne for March on record. The event was also associated with significant rainfall, with Tumbarumba( closest significant town to the crash site) recording 97.8 mm in the 48 hours to 9am on 21 March.