Bomber finding backed by diver
A SHIPWRECK hunter believes there is a strong chance a sunken aircraft off Hinchinbrook Island is a longlost World War II-era bomber.
A group of divers from Townsville will descent to 30m off the northeastern tip of the island, near Cardwell, in two weeks to explore wreckage that is suspected to be a B-24 Liberator that crashed into the sea 75 years ago, killing all crew on board.
Cairns-based underwater explorer Ben Cropp claims he found the wreck several years ago and notified authorities about it.
Mr Cropp, who has found several wrecks along Queensland’s coastline, said he initially thought the Hinchinbrook aircraft was a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, a similar aircraft that was also in operation in the region by the US air force during wartime.
“The co-ordinates were given to me by a fisherman who had hooked up on it, a long while ago,” he said.
“When I was passing by, I found it. I dived down to it; it was in less than 20m of water, not far offshore, in the northeast corner of Hinchinbrook, in the northeast corner of Ramsay Bay.
“It was upside down and half buried.”
Mr Cropp, who has discovered more than 100 wrecks and produced about 150 natural history films during his lifetime, said he reported the find to the then Department of Environment and Heritage Protection about the find, who in turn alerted the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. GOOD CHANCE: Diver Ben Cropp believes the bomber could be off Hinchinbrook Island.
“It’s very hard to tell what the aircraft is, because you can only see the bottom of it,” he said. “I thought it was a B-17, but it could very well be a B-24.
“You’d have to do a very close inspection of the wreckage to work that out, like where the wheels come up into the fuselage, or whether they go into the wings.”
Hinchinbrook Island is the final resting place of another B-24 Liberator, known as the “Texas Terror”, which crashed into the southern side of the island’s Mt Straloch in December 1942 during a violent storm, killing 12 people.
A memorial to the victims was erected at Ingham’s botanical gardens in 1997.
The diving group has said if it finds remains of the crew and is able to verify the call sign of the aircraft, they will start the repatriation process with the US Government.
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JANESSA EKERT “IT’S always worth the good fight.”
Workplace equality champion Tracey Spicer regaled Cairns female leaders and male allies with the challenges she faced across a 30-year career in television, radio and print and strategies to “break through those barriers that still exist for all woman”.
The veteran journalist and fighting author of The Good Girl Stripped Bare was guest speaker at a Women in Media FNQ luncheon on Saturday.
“I’m a huge fan of mentoring, networking and sponsorship. It’s something that everyone can do in every workplace and that doesn’t just mean with other women,” she said.
“It’s also getting fantastic male allies to support you if you are sexually harassed in the workplace or going for a pay rise to stand by you and say this woman deserves this.”
The 51-year-old’s approach in highlighting workplace inequality resulted in her becoming one of the faces behind the #metoo investigation.
“So when you do stand up and fight certainly there can be backlash but it was the best thing that I ever did because it caused me to forge a new career for myself,” she said.
“If we just do nothing, the inequality will continue.”