On a cool August morning in 1987, two air force pilots set out on a routine flight down the east coast of Australia.
Dennis Hume, then 30 years old, was behind the controls, flying a bright orange Aermacchi jet with his colleague Brendan Heslin seated behind him.
The pair had left the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base at Amberley, west of Brisbane in Queensland, on a low-level flying exercise headed for Victoria.
For the first 45 minutes of the flight, everything had gone smoothly, but that changed when they reached the notorious Barrington Tops National Park on the NSW Mid North Coast.
"I noticed that the engine's RPM was winding down, which was a bit alarming," Dennis Hume said.
Within seconds of reaching the Barringtons, Mr Hume's jet was engulfed by cloud and the engine failed.
Mr Hume tried to restart the engine but it didn't respond, likely as ice had clogged the engine's intake.
"That's when I ordered the ejection," he said.
They became two of only four people to survive a plane crash in the Barrington Tops region.
Since 1945, nine planes have crashed in or around the Barringtons, claiming the lives of 30 people and earning the area the nickname the "Devil's Triangle".
