Two die in plane crash watched by Australia Day crowd

The plane crashed into Swan River in Perth, Western Australia

A man and a woman have died in a light plane crash in Perth as a crowd celebrating Australia Day watched on.

The Grumman G-73 "Mallard" flying boat nosedived into Swan River in Western Australia's capital just after 17:00 local time on Thursday.

Peter Lynch was a "well-loved" member of the aviation community

Pilot Peter Lynch, 52, and his girlfriend Endah Cakrawati, 30, were the sole occupants, police said.
An annual fireworks celebration, expected to draw 300,000 people to the river, was immediately cancelled.

Fireworks celebrations were cancelled after the crash

Western Australia Police acting commissioner Stephen Brown said the cause of the crash was being investigated.


"I was actually standing on the Perth foreshore doing a live cross to one of the TV channels when the tragic events unfolded in the sky above me," he said on Friday.

"It clearly had broken at least in two significant parts, and was sinking very quickly." Mr Lynch, a mining executive, was a member of the aviation enthusiast community Great Eastern Fly-In.

"Peter was a man of vision and one with a passion for aviation and was well-loved and respected in our close-knit flying and local community," the group said in a statement.
Ms Cakrawati worked as a public relations manager for Cokal, an Australian-listed coal company.

Crowd shocked

Witness Lloyd Douglas, who was on a nearby boat, said the plane appeared to stall as it turned towards the city.
"As he banked left he seemed to go further to the left ... and lose forward momentum and lost altitude fairly quickly," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Another onlooker, Craig Newill, said the accident shocked his family.
"[The] wings were pointing to the sky and to the water and we thought 'this is not good', then we saw it break into two pieces," he told Perth Now.