Mathew Farrell, a 42-year-old cinematographer, pilot, explorer, and environmentalist, was killed in a recreational plane crash in Victoria’s high country.
The only person aboard the aircraft, which went missing on Sunday afternoon and was found on Monday morning in deep wilderness close to Lucyvale, was Mr. Farrell.
Brad Harris, a close friend and coworker, described Mr. Farrell as an accomplished pilot.
“He was a very thorough, very technically-minded kind of guy,” Mr Harris said.
“His aeronautical knowledge was pretty fantastic — he was a very, very good paraglider pilot and he flew model planes from when he was young and was always interested and involved in aviation.”
Mr Farrell was also an accomplished outdoorsman and he and Mr Harris bonded over a shared love of fly fishing, mountain biking, paragliding, back-country skiing, climbing, and snowboarding.
“He was an adventurer,” Mr Harris said.
“He was used to taking risks and confronting risks and confronting fear, just like all outdoorsy people.
According to Mr. Harris, Mr. Farrell may have underestimated the severity of the Sunday weather.
“Nobody really knows — nobody was out in that weather so we don’t know exactly what happened,” he said.
“When I first heard that he went missing, I said to people, ‘Look if anyone can get themselves out of a bad situation, it’s Matt — if anyone is going to pull off a miracle, he’s the guy.'”
On the day of the tragedy, Mr. Farrell was taking a flight from Mount Beauty to Wollongong to assist the father of his partner, Karen Waller, in fixing his roof.
The leisure aircraft was unable to reach its objective, and airborne and ground searches were hampered by rugged terrain and terrible weather.
“Because of the weather they weren’t able to search thoroughly the first day he went missing so there was just this big unknown,” Mr Harris said
Skilled cinematographer
Mr. Farrell travelled the globe thanks to his skill with cameras.
“Each year he would go to Antarctica to be a photographer and guide on cruise ships for a couple of months,” Mr Harris said.
“He travelled to Karakoram in Pakistan to document the effects of climate change on locals … He loved the environment, and loved protecting it.”
In addition, Mr. Farrell shot and recorded a lot of adventure sports.
Wide Angle Tasmania, a non-profit film and television organisation, paid homage to Mr. Farrell in a social media post.
“Mathew as a joyous and generous human and a good friend to Wide Angle and our filmmaking community,” the post said.
