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 industrial helicopter licence issued by the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, together with kind rankings 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.
This can be a customary restriction in New Zealand for pilots who’ve accomplished fundamental 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 industrial pilot licence for single-engine helicopters. The pilot additionally held a CASA low-level ranking however didn’t maintain a ranking 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 acquired a job working for Nautilus Aviation as a floor crew member at Cairns Airport. His function included normal floor duties, together with washing and refuelling helicopters, transporting passengers by automobile, and taking gas 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 not too long ago 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 function 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 buddies organised a farewell get together, as he was transferring bases to Horn Island. The pilot went out consuming with these buddies and colleagues. Later, Nautilus Aviation advised the press that the opposite workers of the corporate went dwelling at 20:30. “It wasn’t a booze up, it wasn’t an enormous evening.”
Nonetheless, the pilot didn’t arrive dwelling at his house till round 23:00. The subsequent sighting is at 01:00, now the twelfth of August, when native CCTV confirmed the pilot leaving his house and stepping into his automobile. He drove to Cairns Airport.
As floor employees 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 have been routinely left inside helicopters which have 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 obligation, 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 have been typically left on on a regular basis and the helicopters have been shut down with the strobe lights set to on.
This meant that because the pilot turned the battery change on, the strobe lights routinely began flashing.
The footage confirmed the helicopter go darkish because the strobe lights and the cockpit mild have been turned off once more, once more, possible the battery change 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 thrice over the subsequent couple of minutes. The strobes have been by no means turned again on.
As soon as the strobe lights have been off, there was nothing to direct the safety officers’ consideration to the helipad.
Cairns Airport has 24-hour air site visitors management companies based mostly on the management tower. The controller on obligation 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 accessible for unscheduled flights if wanted, for instance, search and rescue operations or diverted flights. The subsequent 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 usually are not designed to guard in opposition to unauthorised departures. As a substitute, the controller labored on an inner coaching course and varied clerical duties. The audio system have been on, which allowed the controller to take care of a listening look ahead to unscheduled flights.
The controller was taking a break, as customary throughout low-traffic in a single day durations, 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 making ready for departure.
The primary rotor started to rotate. At 01:46, the helicopter lifted off of the helipad.
After climbing to about 500 ft, the helicopter turned left, heading south and following a freeway instantly in direction of Cairns metropolis centre. The world was nicely lit up, with loads of synthetic lighting from town buildings and road lighting.
The pilot then made a slight flip to fly instantly in direction of the pilot’s house. He overflew the house and continued in direction of the shoreline, the place he orbited the Cairns wharf advanced. Then the helicopter flew north across the Cairns Marian earlier than following the shoreline again.
Helicopters flying over populated areas are required to fly at the least 1,000 ft above the very best characteristic or impediment inside a 300-metre radius. The Robinson R44’s altitude was 500 ft or under all through the flight.
The GPS knowledge ended there, 70 seconds earlier than the collision. The ATSB famous that this was in step with different items of the identical mannequin that they’ve recovered from accident websites.
The ultimate moments of the flight have been recorded on ground-based radar, which confirmed the Robinson R44 tacking again alongside the coast in 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 at the least stored his life.
Nonetheless, as an alternative, he turned once more, flying over his house for a second time earlier than returning to the coast. He adopted the coast in 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 components of the blades discovered within the high ground resort rooms. The remainder of the helicopter was on the roof, with the cockpit, programs and engine severely broken within the influence. The gas caught on hearth.
Though it’s inconceivable to know for certain due to the harm, there’s no indication of any mechanical points with the helicopter. There was no signal of an in-flight hearth. The tail increase was intact, so the tail rotor didn’t fail.
There was no harm to the skids, which exhibits that the helicopter was not upright (for instance making an attempt to land on the roof).
As a substitute, it shortly turned clear that the helicopter was nearly the wrong way up (inverted) and struck the resort room window blades first.
An aged couple have been quick asleep within the room when the helicopter blades struck their window, with the primary rotor blade tip breaking off into the room. They have been fortunately not injured by the shattered piece of the rotor blade tip flying by the room, though they have 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 harm confirmed that the primary rotors have been travelling at velocity, in step with the engine at a high-power setting. I can solely assume that this room was unoccupied as there have been no stories of accidents regardless of the violence of the influence.
Extra items of the rotor blade have been discovered within the parkland throughout the highway, exhibiting the energy with which they impacted the home windows. The resort shortly evacuated all company and reported no additional accidents.
Toxicology assessments confirmed that the pilot had vital blood-alcohol content material on the time of demise and clearly nonetheless intoxicated in the course of the flight and crash. The pilot’s resolution making abilities have been clearly severely impaired. His degree of inebriation would even have had an awesome 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 remaining 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 method 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 can be penalties if he acquired 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. Reasonably, he appeared to have been on a sightseeing tour, flying over his house 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 digital camera could have been the pilot seeing the constructing on the final minute, pitching up abruptly to attempt to improve clearance. Because of the pitch up, the helicopter would have quickly misplaced airspeed and elevate.
It’s attainable that the primary rotor blade stalled. However extra possible 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. This can be a well-known phenomenon referred to as pilot-induced oscillation, the place the pilot overcorrects in a single route after which overcorrects once more in the other way.
Sooner or later, both to extend thrust whereas pitching up or to arrest the sudden descent, the pilot elevated the engine energy to full.
Both method, only some hundred ft above the bottom, the pilot had solely milliseconds through which to react in a helicopter through which he had no current expertise and solely 16.8 hours whole flight time.
The reality is, the pilot confirmed shocking technical capability 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 schools to cope with it. By the point the helicopter flew into the resort, it was inverted, crashing into the constructing blades first. He misplaced management, shedding his life and risking the lives of others, for an inexplicable unauthorised flight.
