Pilot had joked about helicopters before fatal crash

A pilot killed when his helicopter plunged to the ground had earlier teased his mother that he was learning how to fly choppers - known to be the "ones that fall out of the sky".

Roy Kritos, 36, died on one of his first solo flights in a Robinson R22 helicopter near Masterton on January 17, 2003.

His mother, Lois Kritos, made an emotional statement in the Wellington Coroner's Court yesterday, saying her son had joked about how dangerous the helicopters were.

"I chided him and said, 'Don't joke about things like that'," a tearful Mrs Kritos said.

She told Coroner Garry Evans she was concerned the "fickle" R22 helicopters were too dangerous for learner pilots.

However later she said she accepted that the accident had been caused by an extraordinary set of circumstances.

Labourer Barry Tegus testified how he tried to rescue Mr Kritos when he saw the helicopter hit the ground.

He ran to the wreckage but failed in his attempts to pull Mr Kritos free, all the while trying to beat back flames with a piece of metal.

Mr Tegus became too upset to finish reading his statement about the crash. A loader driver at the aerodrome where Mr Kritos was learning to the fly the aircraft said he believed it crashed after a rotor blade broke and hit the cockpit.

R22 choppers had been known to "throw a blade", he said.

However, Civil Aviation Authority safety investigation manager Richard White found the accident had been caused by low blade rotations per minute.

That may have happened because Mr Kritos took his hand off the collective pitch control lever, which controlled the tilt of the blades.

If the blades became too tilted, they slowed and the helicopter could not stay airborne.

The coroner reserved his findings.

- NZPA