{"id":406726,"date":"2026-04-16T11:30:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T01:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/australianaviation.com.au\/?p=1430921"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:30:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T01:30:28","slug":"a-beautiful-night-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=406726","title":{"rendered":"A beautiful night to die"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img width=\"640\" height=\"426\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHdpZHRoPSI2NDAiIGhlaWdodD0iNDI2Ij48cmVjdCB3aWR0aD0iMTAwJSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxMDAlIj48YW5pbWF0ZSBhdHRyaWJ1dGVOYW1lPSJmaWxsIiB2YWx1ZXM9InJnYmEoMTUzLDE1MywxNTMsMC41KTtyZ2JhKDE1MywxNTMsMTUzLDAuMSk7cmdiYSgxNTMsMTUzLDE1MywwLjUpIiBkdXI9IjJzIiByZXBlYXRDb3VudD0iaW5kZWZpbml0ZSIgLz48L3JlY3Q+PC9zdmc+\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image wp-image-1431121 wp-post-1430921\" alt=\"\" style=\"float:left; margin:0 15px 15px 0;\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" data-public-id=\"Australian Aviation\/P072_Register_AnalysisSR_02_xgkuaa\/P072_Register_AnalysisSR_02_xgkuaa.jpg\" data-format=\"jpg\" data-transformations=\"f_auto\" data-version=\"1776131471\" data-seo=\"1\" data-responsive=\"1\" data-size=\"640 426\" data-delivery=\"upload\" onload=\";window.CLDBind?CLDBind(this):null;\" data-cloudinary=\"lazy\" \/>\u00a0In this extract from his book, Damien Lay imagines the final moments of the Lady Southern Cross\u00a0and its pilots Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Tommy Pethybridge as they went down over the Gulf of Martaban in 1935. \u2018Charles!\u2019 Tommy screamed, his voice slicing through the thick tropical heat clinging to the early morning air. Exhaust and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0In this extract from his book, Damien Lay imagines the final moments of the Lady Southern Cross\u00a0and its pilots Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Tommy Pethybridge as they went down over the Gulf of Martaban in 1935. \u2018Charles!\u2019 Tommy screamed, his voice &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20091,273,312,4773,477,19001],"tags":[472],"class_list":["post-406726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20091","category-australia","category-aviation","category-premium-article","category-premium-content","category-premium-exclusive","tag-australian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406727,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406726\/revisions\/406727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}