High Court of Australia
V.
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
ORIGINAL
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
lez
Judgment delivered at... S¥ANEY.......
W. M. Hoverox, Govt, Print. Melb, on... Friday,..21st.September 19560
©2978/85
TRANS OCHA'
ATRWAYS LIMITED
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA.
JUDGMENT
I direct that judgment be entered for the plaintiff for the sum of £31,000 with costs.
OCEANIC AIRWAYS LIMITED
Ve
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTHALTA.
TRANS OCEANIC ATRWAYS LUMTED
COMA
OF AUSTRALTA, SUDGMENT. WILLIAMS J. !
The plaintiff company sues the Commonwealth of H
Australia for the dam:
» done to one of its aircraft, a Solent flying boat, in a collision between the aircraft and a dredge which occurred in the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River at about 11.45 p.m. on the night of Sunday, 28th October 1951.
The aircraft was then on a commercial flight from Sydney to
Port Moresby via Brisbane carrying passengers and freight. Fully loaded it weighed 79,000 vounds but it was on this particular occasion only loaded to 71,000 pounds. It was in charge of Captain Mathieson, the flight superintendent of the plaintiff, an experienced pilot in the flying of flying boats including Solents. He had with him First Officer (now Captain) Goddard, another experienced vilot, and Captain Cole also an experienced pilot of flying boats but a pilot who had just been through a conversion course in order to qualify to have his licence endorsed as a pilot for Solents. He had previously only taken off Solents twice at night and that was at Rose Bay. In order to stop at Brisbane it was necessary to land on and take off from the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River. That Reach runs approximately in the direction of east and west.
The landing and take off were to be from west to east. A flare path had been laid on the northern side of the river from about the western end of the Cold Stores Wharf to the eastern end of the B.H.P. Wharf. The lit portion of the flare path, about. 4,700 feet in length, really the flare path proper, comprised a line of five flares roughly 1,000 feet apart parallel
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