The stretch of water separating Victoria from Tasmania has claimed aircraft and vessels with unsettling regularity. From the loss of an Airlines of Australia DC-3 in 1946 to the vanishing of Frederick Valentich’s Cessna in 1978, Bass Strait has earned a reputation as Australia’s answer to the Bermuda Triangle.

Sceptics point to the strait’s notorious weather: rapid frontal changes, severe turbulence, and fog banks that can swallow the horizon in minutes. Others note that many of the losses occurred in clear conditions, with experienced crews, and without a single distress call.

Whatever the explanation, the pattern is difficult to ignore: over the past century, dozens of aircraft have entered the airspace above Bass Strait and simply never emerged.