The night of August 9, 1981 was noteworthy alone for its terrible weather, with powerful gusts of wind and low, black clouds creating sleety, icy cold conditions throughout the Manning Valley and Gloucester areas.

Alan and his wife Lucy, who have lived at their farm just over the Tiri Bridge for 52 years, were readying for bed when they heard the tell-tale buzz of an approaching aircraft.

"We could hear it before we could see it," Alan recalled.

He dashed outside to see the single-engine Cessna no more than 20 metres above the rolling hillside that house is perched on, battling against the gale.

"I was scared it was going to hit the house, it was that low," Alan said.

In shock and disbelief Alan watched as the plane continued deeper into the Mt George valley he and numerous other farmers call home.

It's the latest contribution to the mystery surrounding VH-MDX that, after 34 years, continues to deepen.

Alan says he has told his story to police and media multiple times over the past three decades, but according to him, the pleas for a redirected search have fallen on deaf ears.

"It was just ignored," Alan said.

No trace of the plane has ever been found.

It remains Australia's only unsolved civil aviation incident.

On board the flight that night were five men - pilot Michael Hutchins, 52; Noel Wildash, 42; Rhett Bosler, 33; Philip Pembroke, 43, and senior Sydney Water Police chief Ken Price, 54.

Four of the men had sailed on a yacht to Queensland before enlisting the services of Hutchins to fly them back to Bankstown airport, starting in Proserpine with a fuel stop in Coolangatta.

The flight was going according to plan when events hurriedly began to unravel near Taree.

The radio transmissions between Hutchins and the Sydney Air Traffic Control paint a picture of the flight spiraling out of control over a 15 minute period.

At. 7.24 Hutchins radioed control requesting permission to ascend to 10,000 feet to escape turbulence.

Seconds later he radioed again saying that the automatic horizon and the direction indicator, two crucial navigation tools, had failed.

Ten minutes after his initial call Hutchins said the aircraft was picking up ice and was losing altitude at 1000ft a minute.

At 7.37 Hutchins radioed in that the "standby compass is swinging like blazes," potentially meaning that the plane was travelling in circles or tilting strongly.

Air traffic control encouraged the pilot to stay above the minimum safe height for the area of 6000ft, but Hutchins continually responded that they were losing altitude.

At 7.39 the last radio contact was made with the flight, as Hutchins frenetically radioed in that their altitude had dropped to 5000 feet.

Air traffic control continued to attempt to contact the flight but were met with crackling static.

Initial searches in the days and years after the crash centred upon the vast, wild expanses of the Barrington Tops.

Alan's testimony, and that of the other farmers who occupy the winding valley, cast a drastic new direction into the search for the missing plane.

One of Alan's regrets is that he never confirmed the exact time he saw the plane.

34 years later, he's sure that it was between 7 and 8pm; his wife Lucy said it was closer to 8.

"It was tilted towards me and I could see into the cabin, it was full of either smoke or dust," Allan recalled from the night.

It's a significant observation, given that at 7.35 Hutchins had radioed Sydney Air Traffic Control saying there had been an issue with a fire in the cockpit.

"My question is, if it wasn't that plane, what plane was it?" Allan said.

Just 20kms up the winding dirt road from Alan's farmhouse is Guy Watts' sprawling property.

Guy, now 89, knows the country around the valley better than any man alive.

His family first put down roots in the area in the 1850s, and Guy has spent the vast majority of his life working the very same land his ancestors did.

Guy was tucked in front of a roaring fireplace that night when he first thought he heard a neighbour's four wheel drive approaching.

It was only when the rumble turned into a roar that he realised it was a plane.

"It was that low that it made the things on my mantel piece vibrate," Guy said.

Given the small size of the Cessna, Guy is adamant that it was only mere metres above his house when it passed.

By the time Guy scrambled outside to catch a glimpse of the plane, it was gone; disappeared into low-hanging black clouds.

It's a similar tale throughout the valley.

Halfway between Guy and Allan's properties is an old house previously owned by the Smith family.

Though they've long since passed on, Guy recounted that the Smith family experienced a similar thing when the plane narrowly missed their house.

"There's a real mystery about it," said Guy.

The next property down the valley from Guy's belongs to Kelvin Gregory.

Kelvin has been a farmer in the valley for 60 years.

He was hurriedly feeding his horses on that dark August night when he heard the plane approach.

"I heard this noise, I've looked up and seen this little plane battling," Kelvin said.

"I don't know where he went mate, he was in trouble."

The valley which Allen, Guy and Kelvin live in is hemmed in by mountains on both sides.

The men know the plane didn't crash inside the valley, and after seeing it struggle against the wind, are adamant there was only one direction the plane could have gone.

Opposite from Guy's house there's a mile long ridge, with a height of 1000 feet, nestled between the 2000ft peaks of Mount Adventure and Mount Frost.

The ridge is the lowest point in the steep mountains that run along the valley.

If the plane was to exit anywhere, it would be here, the men agree.

However, Kelvin saw the plane head south - away from the ridge.

Kelvin said that once he went inside it's unlikely he would have heard the plane turn again given the roaring wind.

Alongside the critical failure of the plane's navigation equipment and the pilot likely experiencing intense disorientation, the men agree that it was entirely plausible that the plane turned again, flying back past Kelvin's house to then face the low ridge, the most logical exit out of the valley.

It's a theory that has strong support when the final piece of the puzzle falls into place.

John Ritchie, 88, spent decades of his life hang gliding around the mountains and gullies of the Manning Valley.

His sport of choice often took him to some of the most isolated and rugged parts of the countryside.

It's on these hang gliding forays that John heard various firsthand accounts which suggest the plane may have crashed in the mountains above McQueen's Bridge, off the Nowendoc Road - and significantly, over the aforementioned ridge from the valley.

He nominated two farmers from near McQueens Bridge, Arthur Mullens and Ray Homewood, who had told him about hearing two explosions close together on the night - one of which could have been the plane, followed by the echo.

The subject of the missing plane reared its head again when John was hang gliding in the area in the early 1990s.

He bumped into two timber cutters who had been driving on the Nowendoc Road near McQueen's Bridge on the night the plane went missing.

"They wanted to know if we ever flew near Cooplacurripa, or the area," John said.

The timber cutters said that on the night the plane went missing, "they saw a light shining in the trees."

They dismissed it as pig shooters, before later realising it may have actually been the spotlight from the downed air craft.

Despite going back to that stretch of the Nowendoc Road near McQueen's Bridge, the two could never agree on the exact location of the light.

Previous searches have been based upon the assumption that the plane crashed shortly after the final radio transmission was received at 7.39pm.

John's accounts lend more weight to the theory that the plane could have flown through the farmers' valley, over the ridge and the Khatambuhl Valley, before crashing near McQueen's Bridge.

The new site is more than 50km north east of the Barrington Tops where past searches have been focused.

If Alan's initial sighting was closer to 8pm, it also means that the plane may have continued to fly some time after the final recorded transmission at 7.39pm, with the loss of radio contact attributable to the plane flying well below the mountains hemming it in on either side.

It's why they all believe a search in the new area is critical.

"It's never been searched here at all," John said about the area along the Nowendoc Road.

Given the lack of success with the traditional search areas, all the men are hoping that their first-hand experiences can provide a new direction to the mystery.

"We all live in the same area, we're the same mould, we saw the same thing," Kelvin said.

"We're not pulling anyone's leg."

Port Macquarie News