when new booms were again installed in 1964 the fittings first installed in 1958 were re-used. In the wreckage of the right wing of VH-RMQ there was evidence of an initial problem while trying to align the five holes in the old fitting with the bushes in the new boom. The bores of three bushes had been scored with a drill, possibly while maintenance personnel were trying to align three of the holes sufficiently to be able to insert the attachment bolts. Running a drill through the bush at Station 143 may have disturbed the bush and initiated a sequence of actions leading to fatal damage to the wall of the hole. Aftermath Immediately after the accident the Department of Civil Aviation temporarily grounded all Australian-registered Viscount Type 700 aircraft. The temporary grounding of Australian-registered Viscounts was eventually made permanent, pending investigations into the cause of the accident. Fatigue-failure of the wing of VH-RMQ immediately raised doubt about the validity of the retirement life of the inner lower boom in the Type 700 so British Aircraft Corporation and the UK Air Registration Board (ARB) took the precaution of reducing the life from 11,400 flights to 7,000. This soon resulted in British Aircraft Corporation obtaining a number of inner lower booms with time in service greater than 7,000 flights. Nineteen of these retired booms were examined in detail. Sixteen contained minor fatigue cracks in different critical locations. The longest crack was 0.054-inch (1.37 mm) in a boom that had been in service for 8,194 flights. This evidence convinced British Aircraft Corporation and the UK Air Registration Board that the inner lower boom did not possess the fatigue endurance originally intended so the precautionary life of 7,000 flights was made permanent. When this accident occurred the number of fatalities made it Australia's third worst civil aviation accident, a status it retains to this day. Two civil aviation accidents caused 29 fatalities each – the 1950 Australian National Airways Douglas DC-4 crash and the 1960 Trans Australia Airlines Flight 538. See also Ansett-ANA Flight 149 – Viscount accident in 1966 Ansett-ANA Flight 325 – Viscount accident in 1961 Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 – a crash where material fatigue within the wing structure led to a wing separating in flight List of disasters in Australia by death toll List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft List of accidents and incidents involving airliners