Frederick Valentich’s in-flight disappearance over Bass Strait, Australia, on October 21, 1978, is now one of aviation’s best-known enigmas since Amelia Earhart’s vanishing on July 3, 1937. Other accounts of this tragic event can be found online (International UFO Reporter, 1978; Bass Strait Mystery, 1979; Haines, 1987; Norman, 1979; Pinkney and Ryzman, 1980; Valentich, 1980). Notwithstanding the effective coordination of professional pilots and the Australian government’s lookup of planes right after the incident, no evidence of the Cessna DSJ (its registration letters: “Delta Sierra Juliet”) was ever found. The presence of an air-to-ground radio (voice) transmitting between youthful Valentich and a flight service expert, Steve Robey, who was operating at Melbourne International’s “Tullamarine” airport at the time of the demise has made this incident a longstanding and widely known mystery.
Many pilots witnessed this communication, and the Department of Transport (DoT) published a hard copy transcript of the discussion long before the formal accident report was given due to intense and sudden pressure on aviation officials. The researchers have also carefully paid attention to this tape recording; the witness accounts summary and other sounds contained within should stimulate the interest of those who are genuinely interested in UFO events (Haines, 1981). A comprehensive account of the entire incident can be found anywhere else (Haines, 1987). This 13-minute audio tape contains no information that disproves the fresh evidence introduced below. There have been no research shows relating directly to this reviewed air-to-air interaction and following aircraft disappearance, with the exception of a brief article written in Australia (Norman, 1991). Let’s have a look of what is the reality behind the Disappearance Of Frederick Valentich.
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The Earlier Proposed Explanations
It has been suggested that Valentich scripted his own absence: even after a trip of 30 to 45 minutes to Cape Otway, the single-engine Cessna 182 nevertheless had just enough fuel to fly 800 km (500 mi); amidst ideal conditions, the aircraft was never charted on radar, questions remain about whether it was ever close to Cape Otway, and Melbourne police confirmed reports of a light aircraft making a strange arrival not far from Cape Otway during the same time
A whole other theory is that Valentich had become disturbed and began flying inverted. If this were the situation, the lights he believed he saw were actually his own aircraft’s lights mirrored in the water, and he would have ended up crashing into it. But even so, the Cessna he was flying could not have managed to fly flipped upside down for long because it has a gravity-feed fuel system, which means the engine would have shut down fast. Suicide is yet another option that has been suggested. Discussions with doctors and colleagues who knew him, on the other hand, practically ruled out this chance.
According to a 2013 analysis of radio records and other information by astronomer and veteran the United States Air Force pilot James McGaha and writer Joe Nickell, the unpracticed Valentich was tricked by the illusion of a slightly curved horizon, for which he tried and failed to accommodate and unknowingly put his aircraft into a falling, so-called “graveyard spiral,” which he at first misidentified for simple aircraft orbiting. According to the scholars, the G-forces of a tighter spiral would reduce fuel flow, giving rise to Valentich’s “stressful shutdown.” McGaha and Nickell also make an educated guess that the seemingly mounted overhead lights reported by Valentich were most likely the planets Venus, Mars, and Mercury, as well as the bright star Antares, which would have acted in a way compatible with Valentich’s explanation.
What Were The Results?
Unexplained. Frederick has been since legitimately confirmed dead. There was no evidence of him or his aircraft until 1983, when an engine cowl flap from the same sort of Cessna as his aircraft washed up on the shore at Flinders Island, over 300 kilometers from his last known location. It bore a slight serial number that did not correspond to the serial number on his aircraft. A few folks think that it came from his aircraft, but this has not been clearly decided as other similar aircraft did lose the same component in the same region in the early 1980s. The flap was retrieved from a refinished plane. DSJ was never sprayed again. On Flinders Island, it was found very close to the airport runway. Some believe Frederick had become confused after seeing a bright planet, stars, or a meteor shower in the sky. Another possibility is that he got upside down in mid-flight and saw reflections in the water. This theory has not been proven. Guido, his father, passed away in 2000.
Final Summary
When Frederick Valentich, a twenty-year-old pilot, went missing off of the beach of Cape Otway in October 1978, his very last communication to air traffic control documented him saying, “That mysterious aircraft is flying low on top of me again.” It’s not an aircraft, and it’s floating.” These words sparked a worldwide furor. Forty years later, those who were involved, from Fred’s girlfriend to the air traffic controller who talked to him in the final few minutes, are still struggling with what occurred that night and in the days and weeks that accompanied it.
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