1945 RAAF Douglas C-47 disappearance

Airplane disappearance over the Timor Sea January 2021 1945 RAAF Douglas C-47 disappearance Disappearance 1945 12 19 y;1945 12 19 ago Disappeared over Timor Sea in bad weather Douglas C-47B 20DK "Dakota" im MHM Berlin-Gatow.jpg Douglas C-47B 20DK "Dakota" of the Royal Australian Air Force at the Luftwaffenmuseum Berlin-Gatow 1.23 A Royal Australian Air Force C-47B, similar to the aircraft involved Over Timor Sea, Indian Ocean Douglas C-47B AUS A65-83 Pattimura International Airport, Indonesia Darwin International Airport, Australia 25 21 4 25 (presumed) 0 (presumed) On December 19, 1945, a RAAF C-47 with 25 people on board crashed on or near an island in the Timor area of the Banda Sea during a storm. All 25 people on board are presumed dead.https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/c-47/A65-83.html C-47B-30-DK Serial A65-83 Tail Number VH-CIZ Pacific Wrecks 12 January 2021 The plane had been assigned to the Royal Australian Air Force in March 1945 with the call sign VH-CIZ and assigned to 35 Squadron as an air ambulance. The aircraft departed from Morotai and flew to Ambon en route to Darwin, piloted by Pilot Officer Francis Robinson. It left Ambon at 10.40AM and, about an hour into the flight, indicated that it wished to place a message.https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19451219-0 ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-47B-30-DK (DC-3) Aviation Safety Network 12 January 2021 Darwin Aeradio asked the plane to "go ahead" but no response was received. The following day, a message from the plane claimed that all 22 passengers and 4 crewhttp://www.rafcommands.com/database/serials/details.php?uniq=A65-83 Dakota A65-83 RAFCommands.com 12 January 2021 were "alive... all alive" and were "waiting to be picked up". A second, garbled message, which included the Dakota's call sign CIZ, was also intercepted. Two days after that, a civilian engineer reported picking up a final message stating “Darwin from Timor... waiting to be picked up.” Search efforts at the time proved fruitless and no trace of the plane or those it carried has been found. Without a precise crash site to investigate, the Australian Defence Force have refused to fund a search for the remains, although private efforts to undertake a search continue.https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/family-turns-to-facebook-to-solve-wwii-mystery-ng-c9e4636512a431b87d96cb3090a4096c Family turns to Facebook to solve WWII mystery Kaitlyn Offer PerthNow April 24, 2013 12 January 2021 References Category:Missing aircraft Category:Missing aviators Category:Unexplained disappearances Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1945 Category:Aviation accidents and incidents involving the Douglas C-47 Skytrain Category:1945 in Australia Category:1945 in Indonesia Category:1945 disasters in Indonesia Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in Indonesia Category:Banda Sea