Southern Cloud was one of Australia’s first passenger-carrying airplanes. In 1931, the plane disappeared while on a flight from Sydney, New South Wales, to Melbourne, Victoria, with eight people aboard. Despite an extensive search, the wreckage was not found until 1958, on the slopes of the Toolong Mountains in the Australian Alps. The plane, piloted by Captain T. W. Shortridge, had apparently crashed into the mountain in bad weather. The crash led to the collapse of the airline company that operated it, Australian National Airways, which was owned by the aviators Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm.
