A male passenger, subsequently identified as Miloslav Hrabinec, a Czech migrant, had boarded the flight in Adelaide with a concealed sawn-off .22 ArmaLite rifle and a sheath knife strapped to his leg.

Gai then advised Captain Young & first Officer Walter Gowans that there was a man wanting to talk & he had a gun & said it was a hijack.

According to Goreham's account, Hrabinec stated his motive was not financial (he asked for no money) but that he wanted to commit suicide in a spectacular way by parachuting into a remote location and surviving for as long as he could before killing himself.

[1] A civilian pilot and flying instructor, the local Aero Club manager Ossie Watts, volunteered himself and his Cessna aircraft.

An undercover police constable Paul Sandeman, posing as Watts' navigator, was also on board the Cessna.