Emergency turn to form part of inquiry

Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen was presented with his wings by Helen Clark in 2005. Photo / NZDF

Investigators will try to find out if an Air Force helicopter crew was performing an emergency turn when it crashed into a hillside near Wellington early on Anzac Day.

Squadron Leader Kavae Tamariki yesterday told the Herald such checks would "certainly" be part of a wider inquiry into the accident, which killed Flying Officer Daniel Stephen Gregory, 28, Corporal Benjamin Andrew Carson, 25, and Flight Lieutenant Hayden Peter Madsen, 33.

A fourth man was seriously injured and is recovering in Wellington Hospital.

The crew was part of a three-strong Iroquois contingent flying from Ohakea air base, near Palmerston North, to perform an Anzac Day flyover in Wellington on Sunday morning.

The aircraft are understood to have broken formation and gone in separate directions after the weather began to deteriorate near the Kapiti Coast.

Rescue aircraft located the crashed chopper about 7.10am.

Residents living close to the Pukerua Bay crash site told the Herald the chopper, which was heading south, had crashed on the southern side of the hill, suggesting the aircraft had been turning at the time.

Air Force helicopter pilots are trained to do a 180-degree "procedural turn" if they become disoriented in foggy weather, and it was possible the crew had turned the wrong way.

But HeliPro pilot Ned Lee yesterday said the chopper hit a hill on the eastern side of State Highway 1, and appeared to have been coming from the west.

Commercial helicopter pilot Alan Beck said although the Iroquois are not fitted with ground proximity warning devices - such as those carried on commercial aircraft that fly at high altitude - the pilots should have been able to read their global positioning, altimeter, and artificial horizon systems.

Changing their flight course to take them offshore would not necessarily have made the pilots' route any easier, Mr Beck said.

Pilots at sea can get caught "between the sea and the cloud" and lose their horizon, which can make for "a very delicate situation".

Mr Beck - who has flown extensively in the area - and even topdressed the farm where the crash happened - said weather conditions could change "very, very rapidly" on the Kapiti Coast, and commercial helicopter pilots followed the rule "if you can't see where you are going, you don't go there".

A court of inquiry into the crash will likely look at why the helicopters were flying in fog over rough terrain rather than over the nearby and safer coastline.

However, all Air Force Iroquois could be flown using instruments only, and pilots were well-versed in doing so, Mr Beck said.

The Iroquois was a particularly reliable machine that had been well maintained by the Air Force, but he refused to speculate on the possibility the crash was caused by pilot error.

"What if they were flying perfectly safely and it developed engine failure?"

Aside from "pretty robust" four-monthly service, the crashed Iroquois would have undergone a full pre-flight check before setting off on Sunday morning.

- Additional reporting NZPA