Sir Charles Kingsford-SmithPrint Page

The plaque commemorates the Trans Pacific Flight landfall by Charles Kingsford-Smith in 1928. The plaque was rededicated on the 7th June 2014 at the opening of the new clubhouse for the Ballina Aero club.

Ballina claims a connection with Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and the Southern Cross Aircraft as the first Pacific Ocean flight from America to Australia made landfall near Ballina on 9th June, 1928. As the aeroplane reached the coast of Australia after the crossing, the crew realized that they had crossed the coast at Ballina, having been blown off course by the storms and weather that had been encountered during the final leg of the flight from Suva in Fiji.

Forty years after the Pacific flight, Ballina Chamber of Commerce placed a memorial plaque on a stone at Black Head East Ballina which was said by some to be the spot where the Southern Cross passed over as it reached land on that day in June, 1928. The plaque at Black Head was removed during the 1980’s and it was relocated to the Ballina Aero Club at Ballina Airport.

A plaque was recently unveiled at the Summerland resort of Ballina to commemorate the first trans-Pacific flight by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm and two American crewmembers. 'Smithy's' plane, Southern Cross, took off from Oakland (California) on 31st May, 1928, and made its Australian landfall at Black Head, near Ballina, on 9th June, 1928, before turning north to land at Brisbane. 
Western Herald (Bourke, NSW), 13 December 1968.

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Dedication