Date:	Friday 6 June 1958
Time:	c. 12:45
Type:	Piper PA-22-160 Tri Pacer
Owner/operator:	Royal Victorian Aero Club
Registration:	VH-RVP
MSN:	22-5792
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
Other fatalities:	0
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Category:	Accident
Location:	Jack Breen Potato farm, Dandenong Ranges, near Selby, Victoria -   Australia
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Private
Departure airport:	Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne, Victoria (MBW/YMMB)
Destination airport:	Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne, Victoria (MBW/YMMB)
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Piper PA-22-160 Tri Pacer VH-RVP, Royal Victorian Aero Club: Written off (destroyed) when lost control and crashed in a potato field at the Jack Breen Potato farm in the Dandenong Ranges, near Selby, Victoria on 6.6.58. Pilot was a Roman Catholic priest. As reported in the contemporary local press at the time (The Canberra Times (Canberra, ACT) Saturday 7 June 1958 Page 1):

"Four Killed in Victorian Plane Disaster
MELBOURNE, Friday
Four people, including a priest, were killed when a light aircraft dived, according to an eye witness, "like a dart into the earth," on a potato farm in the Dandenong Ranges to-day.

Killed were: Father Ian Charles Wedge, 44, Roman Catholic Parish Priest at Berwick; Mrs. Noreen McNab, 28, mother of two children, of Vialls Avenue, Parkdale; Miss Helen Tonks, 25, of Victoria Street, Sandringham; and Graham Pascoe, 21, of Valentine Street, Thornbury

Their plane, a Piper Pacer, was seen by an eye witness to plummet through a group of heavy grey clouds, and crash into the potato paddock a mile from Selby, about 25 miles from Melbourne. The four people were taking a lunch time flight from the Moorabbin Airport.

Father Wedge was the pilot of the plane, the two women were employed at the airport, and Graham Pascoe was a student pilot.

They had taken off from the aerodrome at 12.40 p.m. in the plane, which was owned by the Royal Victorian Aero Club. The cause of the accident is unknown. Officials from the Civil Aviation Department quickly went to the crash scene to investigate.

Mr. Jack Carse, a farmer who was digging potatoes, said he heard the plane "groaning'' in the air before
it hit the ground 40 yds. away. "The engine was revving terribly fast, and the plane was diving steeply. The people in it did not have a hope," Mr. Carse said.

Fire brigades from Belgrave rushed to the scene, but the plane did not catch fire. Wreckage from the plane was strewn over a wide area, and the engine had gouged itself into a deep hole. The crash tore a long trench in the side of the potato paddock.

The wife of the owner of the potato farm, Mrs. Jack Breen, said her family was having lunch in their house when the plane crashed 400 yds. away. "We heard a terrific roar and looked up to see the plane sail into the ground," she said

Mrs. Breen said pieces of the wreckage fell near her home, and her husband and brother-in-law rushed from the house. She said the impact threw most of the people from the plane.

Father Wedge was ordained in 1941, and Berwick was his first parish. It is understood that Father Wedge was making the flight to take aerial photographs of the Dandenongs.

A second Tri-Pacer was acquired to replace it (c/no. 22-6342) and also registered VH-RVP. This aircraft was soon re-registered VH-RVA following a DCA (as it was then) decree that no aircraft of the same type could carry the same registration if the previous one had been involved in a fatal accident. Evidentially the two VH-RVPs can be identified inasmuch as the first one had a gap in the white stripe to leave a space for the registration, whereas by the time the second one was born it was normal for the markings to be on the fin and rudder anyway, hence the stripe was continuous.

Selby is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 37 km east from Melbourne's central business district, located within the Shire of Yarra Ranges local government area

1. ABC (Madrid) 7 June 1958, p64
2. The Canberra Times (Canberra, ACT) Saturday 7 June 1958 Page 1: Four Killed in Victorian Plane Disaster: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/136299234
3. The Canberra Times (Canberra, ACT) Monday 9 June 1958 Page 1: Seven Killed in Plane Crashes: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/136299342 (Combined report of the crash of Piper PA-22 VH-RVP, Lockheed Hudson VH-AGG in Lae, PNG and Tiger Moth VH-RCI in Queensland)
4. DCA Accident Report Summaries 1956-1968: https://airwaysmuseum.com/Downloads/DCA%20accident%20reports%201956%20to%201968%20v2.pdf
5. https://www.austairdata.com.au/component/rsdirectory/entry/view/31796:vh-rvp-2
6. https://edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austmz/VH-RVP%282%29.html
7. https://aus.aviation.narkive.com/Z5Cxh2yG/air-crash-june-1958
8. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131032789/ian-charles-wedge
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby,_Victoria

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
03-Apr-2016 18:42	TB	Added
31-Jan-2024 16:48	Cobar	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Phase, Departure airport, Source, Narrative, ]
21-May-2025 18:25	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative, Category, ]