Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section of the airport. Peter Carter is an aircraft accident compensation lawyer with Carter Capner Law. He’s also a very experienced pilot. He actually was listening to that press conference, and I asked him for anything that really jumped out at him as being unusual about what we just heard there.

Peter Carter (00:15):
Well, firstly, they didn’t want to tell us much at all. I’m sure they know more than what they’re letting on so far. It appears to me as though it’s the original interpretation stands. It’s an unauthorized flight either by someone who is a current or former staff member, or someone who has access to at least the general aviation area of Cairns Airport.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Why in the world would someone be flying a helicopter at that hour of the night that close to the CBD? This is all yet to be borne out, but is there anything to infer from what we heard there from the ATSB that they don’t even know whether there’s a role for them in this investigation?

Peter Carter (00:55):
What they’re implying there is that it’s a police matter in terms of just like a stolen car situation. That’s my take on it. It’ll be something like that or some variation of it, and it will either involve a student of the organisation or a staff member or a former staff member, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
What makes you speculate that it had to be someone that knew their way around general aviation that would be able to access that helicopter, Peter?

Peter Carter (01:25):
Well, first of all, they have to get access to the general aviation section at the airport and the security there. They’d have to get access to the hangar to be able to get the aircraft out, and they’d have to know how to fly the aircraft, at least depart the aerodrome. So that leads me to the conclusion that it’s someone in one of those categories.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
This could yet have been an emergency landing gone wrong. It is, no one really knows, and in that press conference, the police said they can’t speculate at the moment whether it was intentional or unintentional that the helicopter ran into this hotel in the Cairns CBD. If it was unintentional, if this was a landing gone wrong or something like that, could there be a role for the ATSB? Could there be things gleaned about whether there’d been a malfunction at the helicopter or there might’ve been something going wrong upon trying to land?

Peter Carter (02:19):
I’d be surprised if the ATSB take no part of the investigation. Even if it is a misadventure by someone, they will still want to determine the cause of the impact, whether it was flight into the building or an attempted landing. So I think they will want to know that and they will lend their expertise to determine that.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
This is a no-fly zone, this area of the CBD. You cannot fly there unless you’re the emergency helicopter for the hospital. And even then, it’s got very, very specific parts that it can take off and land from, Peter. So presumably, whichever pilot’s gotten this helicopter up knew they weren’t meant to be flying into the CBD. How difficult though will it be to piece all of this together if the pilot hasn’t survived the accident? To work out what their motives were, to work out what they were doing? If this isn’t detailed or documented anywhere? If it was a truly unauthorized flight, maybe taken on a whim?

Peter Carter (03:18):
Well, as the ATSB officer mentioned, it’s putting together the sequence of events, and it’s from that that they will make an interpretation of what happened. The sequence of events will probably also reveal a motive and the intention, and so that’s how they will at least come together with a theory about, bring a theory together about what was intended. And from that, we’ll determine through technical investigation as to how the impact occurred.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
That was Peter Carter, an aircraft accident compensation lawyer with Carter-