On the twelfth of August in 2024, a pilot fatally crashed a Robinson R44 into the highest of a resort constructing in Cairns, Australia.
The pilot held a business helicopter licence issued by the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, together with kind scores for the Robinson R44 helicopter. He had 157.8 hours flying expertise, with 16.8 hours on Robinson R44 helicopters and ten hours evening flying in Cabri G2 helicopters. His licence had a limitation for evening flights to be performed inside 25 nautical miles of a lit aerodrome.
It is a customary restriction in New Zealand for pilots who’ve accomplished primary evening coaching however haven’t but accrued sufficient evening flying expertise, guaranteeing that pilots new to nighttime operations stay near the visible reference of a lit aerodrome till they’ve gained extra expertise.
In February 2023, eighteen months earlier than the accident, the pilot registered for an equal flight crew licence in Australia. The Australian Civil Aviation Security Authority (CASA) granted the pilot a Civil Aviation Regulation Half 61 business pilot licence for single-engine helicopters. The pilot additionally held a CASA low-level score however didn’t maintain a score for evening flights.
The pilot’s logbook didn’t have any entries for helicopter flights in Australia.
In April 2024, 4 months earlier than the accident, the pilot bought a job working for Nautilus Aviation as a floor crew member at Cairns Airport. His position included normal floor duties, together with washing and refuelling helicopters, transporting passengers by automotive, and taking gasoline from Cairns Airport to the helipad close to the Cairns marina (by highway). He was not authorised to fly any of the Nautilus Aviation helicopters.
The CEO of Nautilus Aviation described him after the crash as a mannequin worker who had lately been named worker of the month. There was no proof of non-public or skilled misery and no historical past of reckless behaviour.
He had simply obtained a promotion, transitioning from normal floor duties at Cairns to a specialised fuelling position at Horn Island, a small island within the Torres Strait in Queensland, about 800 kilometres north of Cairns. He was resulting from journey to Horn Island on Monday morning, the twelfth of August.
On Sunday night, the eleventh, the pilot’s mates organised a farewell occasion, as he was transferring bases to Horn Island. The pilot went out consuming with these mates and colleagues. Later, Nautilus Aviation informed the press that the opposite staff of the corporate went house at 20:30. “It wasn’t a booze up, it wasn’t an enormous evening.”
Nonetheless, the pilot didn’t arrive house at his condominium till round 23:00. The following sighting is at 01:00, now the twelfth of August, when native CCTV confirmed the pilot leaving his condominium and entering into his automotive. He drove to Cairns Airport.
As floor workers on the airport, the pilot had safety codes for entry and was capable of stroll straight to the hangar. The hangar held three helicopters. The 2 bigger helicopters blocked the hangar door from closing, so the hangar was left open. The third helicopter was a Robinson R44 Raven helicopter, registered in Australia as VH-ERH.
The Robinson R44 was a sixteen-year-old single-engine mild utility helicopter with a complete of 4,142 flight hours. Nautilus Aviation had registered it ten years earlier than. There was no cockpit voice recorder or flight knowledge recorder put in.
The helicopter keys had been routinely left inside helicopters which had been parked in hangars. In North Queensland, plane operators should safe unattended plane, both by storing the plane in locked/secured hangars or by eradicating the keys from the plane. On this case, the Robinson R44 was in a hangar, however the hangar had been left open to park the opposite two helicopters.
It was 01:30 when the pilot pulled the Robinson R44 out of the hangar utilizing removable floor wheels fitted to the helicopter’s skids. The climate was overcast, with drizzly rain and visibility reducing.
There have been Australian Federal Law enforcement officials and airport security officers on responsibility, however they weren’t anticipating any flights and didn’t have a view of the hangar. Because the pilot had used authorised safety codes, there was no safety breach to draw their consideration.
The pilot dragged the helicopter onto a helipad and eliminated the bottom wheels, storing them safely earlier than boarding the helicopter.
CCTV footage confirmed the cockpit lights activate after which the strobe lights began to flash. At Nautilus, strobe lights had been typically left on on a regular basis and the helicopters had been shut down with the strobe lights set to on.
This meant that because the pilot turned the battery swap on, the strobe lights routinely began flashing.
The footage confirmed the helicopter go darkish because the strobe lights and the cockpit mild had been turned off once more, once more, doubtless the battery swap turned to off. Then, two minutes later, the cockpit mild turned on once more however this time with out the strobes. The cockpit lights turned on and off once more 3 times over the subsequent jiffy. The strobes had been by no means turned again on.
As soon as the strobe lights had been off, there was nothing to direct the safety officers’ consideration to the helipad.
Cairns Airport has 24-hour air visitors management providers primarily based on the management tower. The controller on responsibility had handled a flight at half previous midnight, the final flight of the evening.
For the remainder of the evening, the controller was on sight and obtainable for unscheduled flights if wanted, for instance, search and rescue operations or diverted flights. The following scheduled flight was at 05:00.
The controller stayed on the highest ground of the management tower however as there have been no scheduled flights, the controller was not anticipated to remain at his console. Air Site visitors Management programs are usually not designed to guard towards unauthorised departures. As an alternative, the controller labored on an inner coaching course and varied clerical duties. The audio system had been on, which allowed the controller to keep up a listening look ahead to unscheduled flights.
The controller was taking a break, as customary throughout low-traffic in a single day intervals, sitting on a recliner chair with restricted view of the airfield, when there was a click on on the radio. It was 01:42. The controller stood and checked the console at 01:43 for any new flight plans. There weren’t.
The pilot began the Robinson R44, which appeared on the console about 90 seconds later. By now, the controller was again on the recliner chair with no concept that an unauthorised helicopter was getting ready for departure.
The primary rotor started to rotate. At 01:46, the helicopter lifted off of the helipad.
After climbing to about 500 toes, the helicopter turned left, heading south and following a freeway straight in the direction of Cairns metropolis centre. The world was properly lit up, with loads of synthetic lighting from town buildings and road lighting.
The pilot then made a slight flip to fly straight in the direction of the pilot’s condominium. He overflew the condominium and continued in the direction of the shoreline, the place he orbited the Cairns wharf complicated. Then the helicopter flew north across the Cairns Marian earlier than following the shoreline again.
Helicopters flying over populated areas are required to fly no less than 1,000 toes above the best characteristic or impediment inside a 300-metre radius. The Robinson R44’s altitude was 500 toes or beneath all through the flight.
The GPS knowledge ended there, 70 seconds earlier than the collision. The ATSB famous that this was in line with different items of the identical mannequin that they’ve recovered from accident websites.
The ultimate moments of the flight had been recorded on ground-based radar, which confirmed the Robinson R44 tacking again alongside the coast in the direction of the airport. Had the pilot continued to the airport, he might need landed safely. Though he would have thrown away his profession, he would have no less than saved his life.
Nonetheless, as an alternative, he turned once more, flying over his condominium for a second time earlier than returning to the coast. He adopted the coast in the direction of the marina for about one kilometre.
At 01:51, safety cameras briefly captured the helicopter abruptly pitching up earlier than descending steeply.
Then the helicopter crashed into the highest of the Cairns Doubletree resort, immediately killing the pilot.
The primary rotor struck the constructing first, with elements of the blades discovered within the prime ground resort rooms. The remainder of the helicopter was on the roof, with the cockpit, programs and engine severely broken within the influence. The gasoline caught on fireplace.
Though it’s unattainable to know for certain due to the injury, there’s no indication of any mechanical points with the helicopter. There was no signal of an in-flight fireplace. The tail increase was intact, so the tail rotor didn’t fail.
There was no injury to the skids, which reveals that the helicopter was not upright (for instance making an attempt to land on the roof).
As an alternative, it rapidly grew to become clear that the helicopter was nearly the wrong way up (inverted) and struck the resort room window blades first.
An aged couple had been quick asleep within the room when the helicopter blades struck their window, with the principle rotor blade tip breaking off into the room. They had been fortunately not injured by the shattered piece of the rotor blade tip flying via the room, though they had been later taken to hospital to be handled for smoke inhalation.
The remainder of the rotor blade broke off within the room subsequent door, taking out the window and leaving a transparent witness mark on the wall. This injury confirmed that the principle rotors had been travelling at pace, in line with the engine at a high-power setting. I can solely assume that this room was unoccupied as there have been no reviews of accidents regardless of the violence of the influence.
Extra items of the rotor blade had been discovered within the parkland throughout the highway, exhibiting the power with which they impacted the home windows. The resort rapidly evacuated all visitors and reported no additional accidents.
Toxicology checks confirmed that the pilot had important blood-alcohol content material on the time of dying and clearly nonetheless intoxicated in the course of the flight and crash. The pilot’s determination making expertise had been clearly severely impaired. His degree of inebriation would even have had an ideal impact on his coordination and response time.
This three-minute ATSB video recreates the route and the ultimate moments of the flight:
The ATSB’s last conclusion is basically a shrug of the shoulders.
For causes unknown, pilot actions resulted in a collision with a constructing whereas conducting an unauthorised and pointless flight, whereas affected by alcohol, late at nights and at low heights over a built-up space, and with out evening flying endorsements.
There’s no manner of figuring out why the pilot determined that evening that it was a good suggestion to steal the Robinson R44 and take it for a low-level flight over Cairns.
He had turned off the strobe lights to hide his departure, exhibiting that he knew there could be penalties if he bought caught. He flew the helicopter for simply 5 minutes, however these 5 minutes should have been closely taxing. He was not rated for evening flight in Australia and had by no means flown a Robinson R44 at evening earlier than. Flying at low degree would have required intense focus, with fixed management inputs.
And all this at 2am, after an evening of heavy consuming.
There’s no proof that he meant to crash the helicopter. Moderately, he appeared to have been on a sightseeing tour, flying over his condominium and Cairns wharf, maybe a goodbye flight earlier than leaving for Horn Island. Drained and drunk, he should have been exhausted.
The sharp pitch-up second captured on digicam might have been the pilot seeing the constructing on the final minute, pitching up abruptly to attempt to enhance clearance. On account of the pitch up, the helicopter would have quickly misplaced airspeed and raise.
It’s potential that the principle rotor blade stalled. However extra doubtless is that the pilot realised that he had pitched up too aggressively and over-corrected, shoving the cyclic ahead for a quick nose-down enter. It is a well-known phenomenon often called pilot-induced oscillation, the place the pilot overcorrects in a single course after which overcorrects once more in the wrong way.
In some unspecified time in the future, both to extend thrust whereas pitching up or to arrest the sudden descent, the pilot elevated the engine energy to full.
Both manner, only some hundred toes above the bottom, the pilot had solely milliseconds wherein to react in a helicopter wherein he had no current expertise and solely 16.8 hours whole flight time.
The reality is, the pilot confirmed shocking technical potential to handle the Robinson R44 for 5 minutes of low-level flight regardless of his fatigue and clear inebriation.
I suppose ultimately, it doesn’t actually matter what exactly went fallacious. When confronted with a sudden drawback requiring fast reactions, he merely didn’t have the psychological colleges to take care of it. By the point the helicopter flew into the resort, it was inverted, crashing into the constructing blades first. He misplaced management, dropping his life and risking the lives of others, for an inexplicable unauthorised flight.
