HMAS Brisbane
a video and pictorial of the last days of the HMAS Brisbane

HMAS Brisbane at Sunset

Loading explosives HMAS Brisbane

The final sunset HMAS Brisbane

One of the last onboard HMAS Brisbane

The first explosion HMAS Brisbane

Halfway Down HMAS Brisbane

Just gone under

Click on any of the photos above to view a larger image

Mike Middleton of On-Camera has allowed us to share his video and photos of the last days before the HMAS Brisbane was scuttled to create a dive experience on the Sunshine Coast.

The photos here and video are available for purchase in high resolution and high quality. Please contact Mike directly for more information. (p: 07 5446 6083 / e: mike@on-cam.net)

The scuttling team, lead by Canadian expert Roy Gabriel, focused on laying 38 charges necessary for the ship's controlled implosion.

These precision charges detonated below the water line and cut through panels in the hull up to a metre square.

The larger holes sped up the scuttling and ultimately provide better diver access to the ship now that it's on the sea bed.

Ex-HMAS BRISBANE was scuttled 2.5 nautical miles east of Mudjimba Island (Old Woman Island).

The ship had been 're-ballasted' to compensate for the tonnes of materials that had been stripped from it for environmental and safety reasons. More than two-hundred tonnes of concrete were pumped into its base so that it had enough weight to sink.

The ex-HMAS BRISBANE is going to be a fabulous and famous Sunshine Coast tourist attraction over the years to come.

View the final minutes of the sinking

Ok there were thousands of us out watching the sinking from one of the 1,500 boats, or from the balconies and roof tops of buildings along the shore. If you were there you saw the flash of fire as the charges went off, and felt the thunder of the explosions reverberate across the ocean. Later that night on the news there were a few close ups of what actually happened for those of us not lucky enough to be within 100metres of the sinking.

What we have here is the final 2 minutes of the HMAS Brisbane showing you what it would have been like if you were only 100metres away. There is no sound attached to keep the file size as small as possible but still allowing you to view what happened.

Windows Media (for windows pc's)
High Quality (9.39MB)
Medium Quality (2.63MB)