High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! On 2 July 1949 a Douglas DC-3 aircraft departed from Perth, Western Australia for a night flight of 441 nautical miles (817 km) to Carnarvon. The aircraft climbed to a height of about 500 feet (152 m) and then spiralled almost vertically to the ground, killing all 18 people on board. It crashed about a mile north of Perth airport and burned for over an hour. It was the worst civil aviation accident in Western Australia and the third-worst in Australia.