The chopper that Brian Depauw flew to White Island never returned. The eruption pushed it off its pad and damaged the rotors. Photo / Supplied
The chopper that Brian Depauw flew to White Island never returned. The eruption pushed it off its pad and damaged the rotors. Photo / Supplied
Minutes after solo-piloting a chopper to Whakaari with four tourists for the first time in his career, Brian Depauw stood near the volcano’s crater and heard a thud.
“I looked behind me and saw the plume going up.” He yelled at his passengers to run.
Within moments he had run 200 metres across the island to the ocean, diving under the surface as often and for as long as he could to protect his lungs from harmful ash and gas.
At times he was in complete darkness with the water devoid of light as the volcano’s toxic plume blocked out the sun.
As light shone through, suggesting the dangerous cloud had cleared, Depauw rose to the surface for air. He dived down again when a second plume approached.
The Belgian helicopter pilot, who at the time worked for tour operator Volcanic Air, sat in the witness box as his police interview two days after the eruption was played to the Auckland District Court.
Defendants include the three Buttle brothers, who own and control the island through their business Whakaari Management Ltd, alongside two tourism companies that on-sold the trips to visitors.
Pilot Brian Depauw in the witness box at the Whakaari/White Island eruption trial in Auckland. Pool photo / Nick Monro
In the police interview, Depauw said after he submerged himself he found two of his passengers had also made their way to the water.
He told them to swim towards a nearby boat that had brought other tourists to the island. Both tourists were in “good shape”.
“I was paranoid there’d be a lahar,” Depauw said in the interview. “I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I didn’t see a way out of there.”
A smaller Zodiac boat picked up Depauw and some others, dropping tourists at the larger boat. Depauw, relatively unscathed, remained on the inflatable ferrying victims back to the larger vessel.
“There was lots of panic, lots of screaming.”
Speaking of the victims’ injuries, Depauw said they were significant. “You’d hold them and their skin would just fall off. That was when you realised there were quite a few burn victims.
“The skin just peeled off like Latex.”
Depauw later found his other two passengers, a husband and wife, who had not made it to the water in time. They were seriously burnt.
Depauw himself suffered just a scratch on the knee and some lung irritation. He attributes his lack of injuries to his decision to jump into the sea.
The helicopter he flew to the island on remains there today. The force of the eruption immediately blew it off its landing pad and snapped the rotors.
Earlier on Thursday the court heard a police interview with Annie Lu, an Australian tourist who visited Whakaari with her mother.
The pair had travelled to New Zealand onboard Ovation of the Seas, booking a shore excursion to visit Whakaari.
After a short time on the island, Lu recounted her mother stopping to take a photo of the nearby crater. It was at that moment a cloud of dark ash and gas began rising.
Whakaari/White Island, taken just hours after it erupted on December 9, 2019. Photo / George Novak
Lu ran behind a rock to take cover, screaming in agony as gas and ash burnt through her clothes including leggings she was wearing, to her skin.
Asked to describe the pain of the burning, she likened it to a porcupine attack. “It’s like 100 needles going into you,” she said in her police interview.
In what is becoming a common description among witnesses who have given evidence so far, Lu said the time engulfed in the ash and gas felt like “forever”, but in reality was only a couple of minutes.
She too made her way to the water after the cloud cleared, submerging herself to soothe her burns. Her mother also survived.
Lu was also asked about the safety information given before she visited the volcano. She likened the safety information to “the same as Hobbiton”, which she had also booked to visit.
“Level two didn’t really mean anything to us,” she said, referring to the volcanic alert level Whakaari was at just prior to the eruption. It is defined as “minor to moderate volcanic unrest”.
The trial continues on Monday.
Ethan Griffiths covers crime and justice stories nationwide for Open Justice. He joined NZME in 2020, previously working as a regional reporter in Whanganui and South Taranaki.
