Aviation safety expert and writer Macarthur "Mac" Job OAM has died, aged 88, after a battle with cancer.
Job was most well known for his books on aviation accidents, as editor of the Aviation Safety Digest and as the person who rediscovered the crash site of the DC-2 Kyeema on the side of Mount Dandenong.
He began his career in Ceduna, SA, flying De Havilland Dragons and Percival Proctors for the Anglican Bush Church Aid Society, before moving into fish spotting operations in both Port Lincoln and Merimbula.
In 1964, Mac was appointed to the Air Safety Investigation Branch of the Department of Civil Aviation, which began his long association with air safety and publications. He would later write several book including Air Crash, the four-volume series Air Disaster, Disaster in the Dandenongs about the crash of the Kyeema, and Into Oblivion - the Southern Cloud Enigma.
He also edited the aviation magazine Aircraft and was a Director of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
Mac's expertise was drawn on for the TV series Black Box, and in 2003, he was awarded an OAM for services to aviation safety.
It was Mac Job's determination that unearthed the forgotten site of the Kyeema crash in the 1970s. The ANA DC-2 overshot Essendon Airport and crashed into Mount Dandenong in 1938. The incident resulted in the government establishing a civilian aviation agency. Previously the military had control of all aviation in Australia.
Mac Job died on yesterday afternoon, 6 August 2014, after battling cancer. He is survived by his five children.
Read a more detailed biography of Macarthur Job on the Civil Aviation Historical Society website.