Seaplane’s owners baffled by ‘inexplicable’ turn moments before deadly crash

A SEAPLANE that plunged into a bay near Sydney killing five Britons after diverting from its authorised route was making a “totally inexplicable” turn, the aircraft’s operator said.

Gareth Morgan, who had more than 10,000 hours of flying experience, is thought to have turned into steep-sided Jerusalem Bay after taking off from nearby Cottage Point, around 25 miles north of the city centre, on New Year’s Eve. The Canadian pilot and his five passengers – Leeds-born businessman Richard Cousins, the chief executive of a FTSE 100 catering giant, his two sons, his fiancee Emma Bowden and her 11-year-old daughter, all died when the aircraft made a sharp right-hand turn and nose-dived into the water.

Investigators have said Mr Morgan, 44, was “very familiar with the area” and would have known he would have been too low to clear the terrain when he entered the bay minutes after taking off at around 3pm.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has said it is now trying to piece together what happened in the cockpit, and one of its lines of inquiry will be if Mr Morgan was incapacitated.

The seaplane did not have a cockpit voice or flight data recorder, although it was not required to have one by law.

There are hopes that electronic devices including mobiles phones recovered from scene may shed light on events on board prior to the crash.

Aaron Shaw, chief executive of Sydney Seaplanes, said: “It is not a route we authorise in our landing and take-off area register and the plane simply should not have been where it was,” he said.

“Further, the aircraft is then reported to have entered in to an 80 to 90-degree bank angle turn.

“A turn of this nature at low altitude by a pilot with Gareth’s skills, experience and intimate knowledge of the location is totally inexplicable.”

The pilot, who had flown seaplanes around the world, was said to have a “high standard of health”.