Crash Records of Catalina A24-370

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B

Bowie

Airman
17
2
Dec 22, 2024
Good afternoon,
Is anyone aware of the Aircraft Accident Data form and the crew details of Catalina A24-370 that struck a reef off Laban Islands on 18/08/45 and was destroyed / written off. I could only find basic details.

Thank you.
 
GTX said:
Interestingly, when I searched through the "Catalina A24 Accidents" files in NAA (6 parts in total covering 396 pages), I found absolutely no mention of A24-370. Curious...
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I checked the crash records and NAA A9186.97 with a negative result. The crash apparently occurred on 18/8/45. On 25/8/45 my father proceed to Borneo Labuan to 15/9/45. On details of Operations sheet, page 9, he was aircrew on Catalina A24-370 which was one of three aircraft deployed and carried out 16 successful sorties. There appears to be a discrepancy with the records.
 
GTX said:
Interestingly, when I searched through the "Catalina A24 Accidents" files in NAA (6 parts in total covering 396 pages), I found absolutely no mention of A24-370. Curious...
Click to expand...

The RAAF records of the time were far from perfect so it is possible the record is there with another serial (one Spitfire had three different records of its destruction and none were correct).

Missing records are also not uncommon. The two Beauforts that had their crews recovered this year off Gasmata also have no records relating to the Gasmata crashes at NAA.

I suspect some of this was due to pilfering. A member of the RAAF Historic Department was caught stealing records from NAA some years back for sale and for his personal collection so no doubt others have done the same.

These pics have been floating around for years.


 
Last edited:
Thank you for the information.
 
You could try searching NAA for the unit Operation Record Books (diaries) which in most cases are recorded with the form number A.50 in the title. I would start with a search of something like A.50, unit followed by A50, unit but would leave out the year as NAA staff are often too lazy to type in the year correctly and will not correct their errors when they are advised of them.
They have known this file, and over 200 others, is incorrectly dated since 2019 and this screenshot taken today shows that they have not yet corrected it (or any others I have checked).


That search will produce documents like this that cover the unit history for the period of each diary. Some diaries are very detailed, some are very sparse.



If you know the crew names you could search for them with the word repatriation (if any were injured or killed) or martial (in case one or more were charged)
 
Thanks for that. No attention to detail, in one of the documents of operation records, the staff member scanned their hand.
 
Yep. The staff motto at NAA is She'll be right mate because near enough is good enough and their QA department is fast asleep.

And they cannot be replaced because they are public "servants"

The worst of it is they have some good written procedures but no one follows them or inforces them.
 
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