‘Guess what mate? I’ll be in the show’: Crash pilot leaves last voicemail
A haunting final voice mail has revealed just how excited crash pilot Peter Lynch was to fly over the Swan River on Australia Day.
The 52-year-old and his partner Endah Cakrawati were killed when their seaplane stalled and then crashed into Perth’s Swan River on Thursday, in front of thousands of shocked onlookers.
In a voicemail left to Mack McCormack, who's the owner of Red Barron’s seaplanes, Mr Lynch sounded ecstatic to get approval to fly.
“Guess what mate?” Mr Lynch says.
“I got my type rating and everything through the CASA, they took care of me.
“So that’s all good, it’s all sorted, really happy about that, means I’ll be in the show.”
Mr McCormack said Ms Cakrawati, a mother and TV presenter in Indonesia, wasn’t supposed to be in the plane at the time, as she had planned to watch the show with him from the shore.
But the last minute decision to get inside the plane proved to be a tragic one.
Mr McCormack said he’d never met Mr Lynch in person, but gave him regular advice about flying over the Swan River in the lead up to Australia Day.
“Peter had told me that CASA had been in contact with him from CASA Canberra and they were concerned with his limited experience and they didn’t want him to fly the air show,” Mr McCormack said.
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Mr Lynch, a father of three, had only recently flown the twin engine Grumman Mallard to Perth after relocating from Brisbane.
“He was a character, a true Australian,” friend Rod Kinnish said.
“He embraced the spirit of adventure and pioneering.
“He’s going to be incredibly missed because of what he brought to everybody,” he added, fighting back tears.
It was just after 5pm local time on Australia Day when the plane banked sharply to the left and slammed into the river.
The plane went down about 200 metres offshore, missing scores of nearby boats and barges laden with fireworks for the scheduled Skyshow that evening.
Investigations are now trying to piece together what went wrong, but without flight data or a cockpit recorder onboard, it is proving to be a lengthy process.
