Flying doctor landing on Eyre Highway in dramatic Nullarbor rescue prompts calls for airstrip upgrade

There are renewed calls to upgrade a remote airstrip after the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) performed a rare highway landing to evacuate a seriously injured patient on the Nullarbor Plain.

A 75-year-old man was heading west in bad weather when his car and caravan rolled on Tuesday near the small town of Eucla, about 12 kilometres from Western Australia’s border with South Australia.

The driver remains in a critical condition at a hospital in Adelaide.

His evacuation was complicated by the weather at Eucla, where 13.2 millimetres of rain was recorded in the 72 hours between Sunday and Tuesday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The flood-prone airstrip at Eucla was out of action, forcing Port Augusta-based RFDS pilot Alex Olliff to land on the Eyre Highway as emergency personnel managed traffic on the ground.

“This is my second time [landing on the Eyre Highway] in five years,” Mr Olliff said.

“We get the police to come out and shut the road down for our arrival. Flying over the road trains before you land is pretty cool.

“It’s narrower than what we’re used to being a road, but it’s a decent highway so it’s perfectly safe to land on.”

Remote highway a ‘lifeline’

Eucla Police officer-in-charge Sergeant Dale Grice said landing on the Eyre Highway is always a last resort.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen it in the year that I’ve been back,” he said.

“Previously I saw it once in the two years I was stationed here, about 20 years ago.”

Sergeant Grice said landing on the Eyre Highway can take up valuable minutes in a life-or-death situation.

“It does take a little bit more preparation time. They [the RFDS] have to get a few more approvals in beforehand, so it can delay that response to a certain extent,” he said.

Eucla, which had a population of 37 at the 2021 Census, sees hundreds of vehicle movements every week along Australia’s Highway 1.

The town is 500km from the nearest hospital at Ceduna in SA and 900km from Kalgoorlie Health Campus in WA.

Simone Conklin, who has lived in Eucla for 22 years and is captain of the local emergency services, said using the highway as an airstrip did not happen often “but it’s a lifeline when we need it”. 

“this is only the second time since 2019 that we’ve actually shut the highway and landed an RFDS plane on the highway,” she said.

“Anything over 3mm [of rain] and the airstrip becomes unusable because it’s only a dirt strip and has a bit of clay in it.

“You’re certainly not going to put a multi-million-dollar plane down on a slippery area.”

Upgrade likely to cost $4m

In 2020, the Shire of Dundas completed a business plan and estimated it would cost more than $4 million to upgrade the 1.4km-long runway to an all-weather strip.

The council has so far been unsuccessful in seeking state and federal funding for the project, and those estimates have now likely blown out.

Ms Conklin said the airstrip is long overdue for an upgrade.

“Yes it does need an upgrade,” she said.

“The shire has been trying for funding to get it bitumenised so it can become an all-weather strip because out here all the locals rely on the RFDS coming out once a month for a clinic.

“It didn’t happen today because it was too wet.

“They come out, write your script, see them like your everyday doctor. But we probably won’t get one now until the new year.”

Former Dundas Shire councillor Rasa Patupis, whose family built the Eucla Motel in 1967, said the airstrip has been an ongoing concern for many years.  

“The shire has put three or four applications in and they’ve been refused by the state government. You need their support before the federal government will support you,” she said.

“We’ve just got to ask the ministers why we’re getting knocked back all the time? We’ve got another application in the pipeline now.

“This is a national highway. You’d think the federal government would be supportive.”