THERE are many things you don't want to hear on a flight.

These include, ''We have run out of beer'', ''This flight is being diverted to Adelaide'' or ''We welcome on board the cast and crew of the Biggest Loser for their gala smorgasbord reunion special''.

But for a moment imagine this: You are sitting in a light plane climbing wildly out of control over the outback when the panicked pilot turns and says; ''Can you help me?''

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She is wrestling with the controls trying to level the twin-engine Piper but the electric trim won't respond, forcing it up at 50 degrees.

According to one passenger on the medical charter, clinical psychologist Doctor James Hanley, ''Samantha [the pilot] was pinned right back in her seat with the flight stick at her chest. Her hands and arms were shaking as she struggled to push downwards on the flight stick to no avail.''

When she asked for help, Hanley says, ''My colleague quickly pushed down on the secondary flight stick in front of him and the plane levelled out.''

The plane then lurched left and right, nearly stalled, drastically lost speed, resulting in a series of mid-air ''bunny hops'' before finally landing.

An official report later said that, ''flight into terrain was narrowly avoided''.

While your correspondent's aeronautical experience is confined to watching The Dambusters on late-night television, we are sure the use of the terms ''aeroplane'' and ''flight into terrain'' in the one sentence cannot be good.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) investigators concluded that if the passenger in the co-pilot's seat had ''not had the capacity to assist … the outcome of the flight was likely to have been a serious accident''.

We have great sympathy for Samantha Fanning, the young pilot who just landed her first commercial flying job with Alligator Airways, an outback charter service set up at the top end of Western Australia.

Earlier that day on a flight in the same plane from Kununurra to a Turkey Creek medical clinic, the door had blown open sucking certain items, including the surgeon's laptop computer, into the desert air. And two weeks earlier one of the Piper's engines had failed, forcing her to make an emergency landing at Kununurra.

These near disasters and many others have been the subject of furious discussion in the quiet confines of Melbourne's Federal Court in a case called Civil Aviation Safety Authority v Alligator Airways.

It should have been called Bungles in the Bungle Bungles.

CASA grounded the airline at the start of May and Alligator was desperate to have the order rescinded. The bush service usually flies about 4000 flights a year - most conducted over the 100-day peak period when tourists arrive to savour the wonders of the Kimberleys in the dry season, which runs from May until October. This meant that every day the airline remained grounded cost the company $12,000. And with loans of $6 million, it was haemorrhaging money.

Which is why owner Rob Kendrick wanted the Federal Court to press the go button. If not, he said, ''Alligator will be unable to pay its employees or honour its contracts, and it will default on its loans with the result that Alligator will suffer irreparable harm.''

CASA for its part said Kendrick had been warned repeatedly that he had taken unacceptable shortcuts to keep his planes in the air. CASA investigators claimed that within Alligator there was a ''delinquent safety culture … where pilots have regularly flown overloaded, in breach of flight and duty limits, and have failed to record defects''.

Kendrick ''strenuously'' denied the allegations and claimed the problems had been addressed by replacing key staff in the 16-plane fleet . ''In the time since I purchased Alligator in 2007, Alligator has flown in excess of 35,000 hours and carried 40,000 passengers with an excellent safety record with no accidents.''

But not all those passengers could be described as satisfied customers.

Retired Maroochydore couple Sonia and Ray Furnell were on a three-month trip around Australia when they booked a $230 per seat scenic flight over the Bungle Bungles and the Ord River with two long-time friends. Russian-born pilot Denys Sergieiev picked them up at the Kununurra Caravan Park at 6.15am on April 28. There was a younger couple on board the bus eager to view the remote range from the air.

The six were driven to the airport and asked their weights by pilot Sergieiev, before boarding an aircraft for the mandatory safety lecture.

But after revving the engine, Mrs Furnell told The Saturday Age, the pilot, ''started to shake his head in frustration and said we couldn't take this plane''.

She said they were left at reception for more than an hour before boarding an ''older looking'' Alligator Airways plane for the sightseeing flight. It was now about 8.20am. ''We took off and then everything went pear-shaped.''

That would appear to be a fruity understatement. A video she shot shows the plane lumber along the runway, managing to just take off but lacking the power to rise above tree tops.

According to a CASA report, the aircraft's supercharger was not working, which meant the plane was unable to climb. At a height of only three metres, pilot Sergieiev wanted to make an immediate emergency landing but as the paddocks below were too rough he moved to plan B. He headed for the airport in a slow arc, knowing that any sharp turn would drive a wing into the ground.

''I certainly thought, 'This is it','' Mrs Furnell told The Saturday Age. ''I still don't know how the wing didn't hit the ground. It could have been 30 centimetres or it could have scraped it.''

''The alarm was screaming and we knew we were in big trouble.''

The pilot eventually nursed the crippled plane over a ploughed paddock and fences before thumping down next to a runway.

''Denys was white as a sheet when he turned around,'' said Mrs Furnell. ''He said he couldn't explain why we didn't have enough power.''

Sergieiev would tell CASA investigators he had been told the plane did not need the supercharger to reach takeoff power, a claim Kendrick denied.

''I disagree . . . that I told Denys Sergieiev that he could take off with the turbocharger inoperative,'' he said in a court affidavit. ''Sergieiev must have misunderstood what was said at the pilot meeting. English is not Sergieiev's primary language.''

Mrs Furnell said that as they took off she could see a farmer in a paddock below. They were so close she still remembers his face.

That face belongs to Rob Boshammer who was starting his irrigation system in the paddock, just 150 metres from the airport. According to CASA records tendered in court, he heard a ''whooshing sound'' and turned around to see a plane heading towards him.

''He was about to run sideways to avoid the undercarriage hitting him. The aircraft went over the top of him and a fence and then skidded onto the runway.''

Alligator somewhat optimistically reported the drama as a ''low risk'' incident.

On that criteria the Hindenburg had a parking accident.

According to CASA, one former chief pilot, Matthew Bawden, has said planes regularly flew when overloaded. In one charter six planes were used to fly a Fox Studios film crew from Darwin to Home Valley station and back. The pilot claimed that five of the planes had flown back overloaded with fuel, baggage and passengers.

One CASA investigator alleged that pilots ''were being sacked so often that the culture of the pilot group was to not complain about inadequate aircraft maintenance''.

One told CASA, ''It was part of the Alligator . . . culture that no one would say no to a client when they requested a flight.''

The evidence against Alligator was compelling. There was a low-level flight that narrowly missed helicopters on a cattle muster and a poorly serviced engine that seized, forcing an unpowered emergency landing at a remote station.

The reality is that with a three-year history of dodgy maintenance, staff turnover and six incidents that could have been fatal, Biggles himself wouldn't let them out of the hangar, much less Justice Bernard Murphy who presided over the case.

In one instance, repairs to an exhaust system were welded together in a farm shed from ''a scrap exhaust system''.

In his full decision, published yesterday, Justice Murphy found, ''I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Alligator has engaged in, is engaging in, or is likely to engage in, conduct that constitutes, contributes to or results in a serious and imminent risk to air safety.''

Last week Alligator was placed into voluntary administration and the hangar doors locked.

It is the law of the Bungles.