Son of man who died in plane crash praises recovery efforts

THE son of a Cairns man killed in the Lockhart River plane crash has praised the “compassion” of police officers after recovery efforts came to a close on Wednesday.

Jake Ganter’s father Wayne, 63, was killed with four other men when their twin-engine Cessna 404 Titan smashed into sand dunes in poor weather near Lockhart

River on Cape York earlier this month.

“Everybody has been excellent, very open and very helpful,” Jake Ganter said from Brisbane. “You can see there was a lot of compassion.

“The police were visibly shaken from the experience; they were Cairns locals and the five gentlemen were Cairns locals.

“You can see it was a shock to everybody, it was pretty comforting.”

The fuselage of the crashed Cessna was removed from the dunes on Wednesday, one day after the last of the passengers were recovered.

“You can’t just go cutting into a plane. They had to figure out ‘the how’, so they can understand ‘the why’ later down the track,” Mr Ganter said. “People were working around the clock and being as respectful a possible.”

The bodies of the deceased are expected to be taken to Brisbane for a post mortem examination and investigations by the Air Traffic Safety Bureau and police forensics officers will continue.

“It takes time to be thorough, especially when it was a commercial passenger flight,” Mr Ganter said.

“I work in a high risk industry where investigations are the way they are to prevent further accidents.

“I have no dramas with it at all; I have been very happy with police efforts to keep us in the loop.”

The five men killed in the crash have been identified as Qbuild workers Wayne Ganter, 63, Henry Roebig, 62, and Wayne Brischke, 57, pilot Stuart Wavell, 36, and contractor Mark Rawlings, 49.

Cape York Inspector Mark Henderson said the recovery efforts had been hampered by the site of the wrecked plane.

“Access was extremely difficult,” Insp Henderson said.