Which MacRobertson race winner died at the controls of a Constellation?

Koene Dirk Parmentier earned his pilot's license in 1927, during military service, and joined KLM in 1929. In 1934 he flew the company's Douglas DC-2, registration PH-AJU and named Uiver ("stork"), in the MacRobertson air race between England and Australia. It was the only large passenger aircraft in the race, and he and his crew achieved a creditable second place, a feat that made him one of the most respected aviators of his era. After the war he became KLM's chief pilot.

On October 20, 1948, Parmentier was in command of the Lockheed L-049 Constellation Nijmegen, registration PH-TEN, on a flight departing Schiphol with a planned stopover in Prestwick. The co-pilot was the Irishman Kevin Joseph O'Brien. The weather report issued at Schiphol forecast some cloud over Prestwick that was expected to clear, but the weather at the Scottish airport kept worsening.

The crew attempted an approach to runway 32, then the only one with ground-controlled approach. The aircraft struck a high-tension cable and crashed into rising terrain near the airport. All 40 people on board died.

The investigation concluded that the probable cause was the crew's reliance on a combination of erroneous navigation charts and incomplete weather forecasts, which distracted and disoriented them amid adverse weather. Parmentier is buried at Rhijnhof cemetery in Leiden.

His death, at the controls of one of the most modern aircraft in KLM's fleet, deprived the Dutch airline of its most prestigious pilot just as it was rebuilding its postwar intercontinental routes.