Connellan air disaster

The Connellan air disaster was a suicide attack at Alice Springs Airport, Northern Territory, Australia, on 5 January 1977.

The attack was carried out by a disgruntled former employee of Connellan Airways (also known as Connair), who flew a Beechcraft Baron into the Connair complex at the airport. The attack killed the pilot and four other people and injured four more, two of them seriously.

The disaster is one of only two aircraft suicide attacks in Australia's history, the other being in 1982 at Bankstown Airport.

Background

The perpetrator, Colin Richard Forman, was 23 years old at the time of the attack. Forman was born in the United Kingdom and lived in New Eltham, London. He went to Colfe's Grammar School in Lee, London and went on to study at Suffield University. Following graduation he migrated by himself to Australia. In 1974, he had attempted to forge an airline ticket to England. The forgery was detected and Forman had a conviction recorded against him.

In November 1975, Forman qualified as a commercial pilot; he started flying for Connair in January 1976. His conviction for forgery became known to his employers, and, after seven weeks with Connair, Forman was dismissed. He found work as a pilot at Ord Air Charter in the northern Western Australian town of Wyndham, but was soon terminated there as well. Forman apparently believed that the proprietor of Connair, Roger Connellan, had informed Ord Air about Forman's conviction.

In late 1976, Forman was living in the Queensland city of Mount Isa, eking out a living flying occasional charter flights in a single-engine Cessna for freight and tourists, and becoming a member of the Mount Isa Aero Club. In about October 1976, he told a fellow member and local North West Star journalist, "If I don't get a job by Christmas then you will get to know, and through you most of the world will know". He attended the club's 1977 New Year's Eve party.