Kiwi pilot killed in Aust crash

An experienced rescue pilot and founding Garden City Helicopters employee who died after his chopper nosedived to the ground during an training exercise was a hero to many.

Father-of-three Roger Paul Corbin, 57, died when an aerial exercise at Australia’s Hobart Airport on Tuesday evening (Australian time) went horribly wrong. The single-engine Squirrel helicopter plunged into the edge of the runway, killing Corbin and leaving a 33-year-old trainee pilot with serious injuries.

Born in Invercargill in 1960 to a family of 10, Corbin graduated with his first pilot’s license from the Southland Aero Club.

‘‘He was always talking about flying, that’s what he always wanted to do,’’ brother Darryl Corbin said.

‘‘He sold everything and moved to Nelson to do his commercial licence and on to the West Coast to fly over there.’’

A move to Christchurch followed, where he joined Christchurch’s Garden City Helicopters with founder John Currie.

A turbulent flying career ensued, but Corbin was never deterred from his passion.

He escaped unharmed when his helicopter flipped on its side during a rescue attempt at a cycle race in in the Port Hills.

He worked internationally, once being shot at while working as a civilian pilot in Papua New Guinea, and for oil and forestry companies in Myanmar before settling briefly in Sydney to work for a surf rescue helicopter company, then moving to Tasmania in 2000.

With 30 years of experience in the aviation industry, he founded and managed Rotorlift Aviation, the state’s first 24-hour-emergency helicopter rescue service.

An outdoorsman, he was a keen shooter and boatie and returned to New Zealand regularly for motorcycle trips and the Burt Munro challenge. He and his wife Allana Corbin planned to retire in Queenstown.

Allana Corbin was the first woman to circumnavigate Australia solo in a helicopter and suffered a broken back and internal injuries as one of two survivors of a plane crash in 1990.

In a statement, she and daughters Sophia, 20, and twins Isabella and Indiana, 11, said Corbin would be ‘‘hugely missed’’.

‘‘We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to all persons who attended the scene of the accident and in particular Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting, Tasmania Police, Ambulance Tasmania and Hobart airport officials,’’ they said.

Corbin was an Australian Search and Rescue Award recipient and was cited for his more than 700 emergency missions. He was one of 14 rescuers who received a Tasmania Police Commissioner’s Commendation for aiding seven people stranded at Mount Strzelecki on Flinders Island, northeast of the island of Tasmania, after a light plane crash in 2010.

He said his time in helicopters had given him some of his greatest memories, including as John Polson’s stunt double in the film

Mission Impossible II, alongside Tom Cruise.

A Sunshine Coast aviation school said Corbin as a ‘‘legend of the skies taken too soon’’. ‘‘A true gentleman, hilarious, humble and our coffee loving mate.’’

Tasmania Police Inspector Natasha Freeman said Corbin was practising emergency procedures when the crash happened.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau would investigate the crash.