Australian National Airways Southern Cloud Crashes into Snowy Moutains, Killing 8

The "Southern Cloud", registered VH-UMF, was one of 5 three-engine Avro 618 Ten aircraft flying daily airline services between several Australian cities for Australian National Airways in the early 1930s. On 21 March 1931, the Southern Cloud departed at 8:10 AM from Sydney for Melbourne. Onboard were six passengers and two crewmembers, including pilot Travis "Shorty" Shortridge. Weather conditions en route were hazardous and much worse than predicted. The aircraft never reached its destination and disappeared.

The search for the missing aircraft lasted eighteen days and involved over twenty aircraft. No trace of the missing plane was found. Airline co-owner Charles Kingsford-Smith searched for the missing plane and "may have flown over the crash site, but with the aircraft having burned it would be very difficult to distinguish from the air and so the discovery wasn't made."

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