Christiaan Gobel, 79, (pictured) and three others were killed during a training exercise involving two light aircrafts at Mangalore, north of Melbourne on Wednesday
The wife of a pilot who died when two planes collided mid-air has been dealt a double blow after it was revealed their son had been killed in a plane crash 15 years ago.
Christiaan Gobel, 79, and three others were killed during a training exercise involving two light aircrafts at Mangalore, north of Melbourne on Wednesday.
Family and friends have been rallying around his wife Wilma, who has been struggling as their son Anthony Gobel, 35, died in similar circumstances.
Anthony Gobel’s light plane crashed into a paddock about 20 kilometres west of Condobolin, in western NSW during bad weather in December 2005.
Bendigo Flying Club chief flying instructor Linda Beilharz said Mr Gobel’s death had been incredibly sad for the family after seeing what they went through when Anthony died.
Igo Sedev was one of the pilots who died in the crash, and was remembered by friends and family as someone who was extremely talented with hands of gold
‘That death makes this one worse, we saw what they went through when he died and how difficult that was,’ she told the Herald Sun.
‘Chris was about to retire, he had worked long and hard, he was about to step down within the month.’
He has been remembered as an experienced pilot with a sharp sense of humour.
Pilots Ido ‘Dodo’ Segev, Pete Phillips and a 27-year-old woman, believed to be a Thai national, also died in the crash.
Tributes to the victims have flooded in, with Mr Segev being remembered as someone who died doing what they loved.
‘Ido was one of a kind, a modest and loved young man, professional and extremely talented with hands of gold,’ one tribute reads.
Flight data has revealed the collision occurred just five minutes after the Piper Seminole VH-JQF took off from Mangalore airport.
The Piper Aircraft took off at 11.20am and was using instruments to fly in the cloudy conditions.
Flight data has shown how two planes collided mid-air over Mangalore airport in northern Melbourne on Wednesday. Pictured: police investigate one crash site after the crash
The planes landed around one kilometre from each other, with the bodies of the four victims found in each of the planes. Pictured: response teams attend to the paddock crash site
At 11.25am the Piper hit the Beechcraft Travel Air VH-AEM which had taken off from Tyabb airport near the Mornington Peninsula at 10.55am and was descending to land at Mangalore Airport.
Both planes spiraled out of control, with the bodies of all victims found inside the plane wreckages at both crash sites in Lambing Gully Road, Avanel and Seymour-Avanel Road, Managalore.
The wrecks are around one kilometre away from each other.
Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said investigators are unsure what caused the planes to crash.
‘We don’t have any explanation of what happened. We can’t speculate on that,’ Mr Gibson said.
The incident was Australia’s first mid-air plane crash in more than a decade.
The inquiry into the crash will take months as investigators piece through both wreckage sites and examine further flight data
The Beechcraft Travel Air VH-AEM took off from Tyabb airport near the Mornington Peninsula at 10.55am and was set to land at Mangalore Airport (left) while the Piper Seminole VH-JQF took off from Mangalore airport as the other plane was descending in cloudy conditions
Local Joanne Dwyer was on the Hume Freeway on her way to Seymour on Wednesday morning when she saw a plane ‘doing what I would call a death roll.’
‘Planes do practice manoeuvres around here all the time but I thought that seems to be going a bit lower than normal,’ she told The Age.
Specialist investigators have launched an inquiry into what caused the planes to collide.