Pilot felt chopper ‘sink’ before fatal crash
The pilot of a helicopter that crashed, killing an Auckland man in Wanaka, has told an inquest he believes the crash was caused by an aerodynamic phenomenon.
Jerome Box, 52, a construction company director, was killed when the Squirrel AS350B2 he was travelling in with three of his mates crashed on Mount Alta, Wanaka, in August, 2014.
The helicopter, belonging to The Helicopter Line Limited (THL), rolled 700 metres down the slope before coming to a stop.
Five of the seven occupants on the heli-skiing trip were ejected from the cabin, all suffering injuries. Box was crushed under the cabin and killed.
An inquest into Box’s death, the last of a string of court hearings related to the case, began in Auckland yesterday in front of Coroner Sue Johnson.
The inquest looked into what caused the crash that led to the fatality and ways of preventing future crashes and the loss of more lives.
Present at the final hearing were Box’s two children, Xavier and Briana, his wife, Adelle Box, and his brother, Gregory Box.
Dave Bensley, a passenger from the crash, was also present in court, as was pilot Dave Matthews.
Matthews told the inquest he was adamant his training, and the weight and balance of the aircraft, were not the cause of the crash.
On the day of the trip, he said he asked the passengers their weight and was told they weighed an average of 85kg each.
‘‘I thought about that and did calculations in my head and on my iPhone.’’
The takeoff weight was about
2248 kilograms. He agreed he should have added an additional
4kg for each passenger, as permitted under the Civil Aviation rules. Because he did not do that, it meant the aircraft was about 27kg heavier than calculated.
Matthews said he had tried to find an explanation as to what could have gone wrong ever since the incident. He concluded that it could only be because of vortex ring state – a dangerous condition that can occur during helicopter flight, engulfing the rotor and causing severe loss of lift.
He said during the flight he was happy with the wind direction, power and aircraft, and flags on the ground assured him he wasn’t flying too low but taking a fairly flat approach.
About 10 to 20 metres from the landing site, Matthews said he felt ‘‘a sink’’.
‘‘I felt like a hand had reached up from the mountain and grabbed the aircraft,’’ he said.
At this point he said he wasn’t happy with his planned approach or his escape route. He increased power but felt no response from the aircraft like he expected.
He felt they needed to get out of the area, but they were getting closer to rocky terrain and said he did everything he could to avoid it.
The inquest continues.
A new park at the former site of Christchurch’s Redcliffs School will be open to the public in 2021.
The Main Rd site was acquired by Christchurch City Council following a land swap deal with the Ministry of Education.
The new Redcliffs School, opened last week, was built on the original Redcliffs Park site on Beachville Rd and in return for selling the park to the Government, the council took ownership of the former school site.
Most of the school buildings were demolished in 2018 but the playground and a community building in the southern corner remain.
The playground has been open to the public for some time and the construction of two sports fields and a perimeter pathway was expected to be finished by the end of this year or early next year, council head of parks Andrew Rutledge said.
He said the fields would be ready for use next winter.