Yesterday, investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau went to the Gold Coast to start their work.
They had to hurry this morning to get important pieces of the wreckage off the sand island before the tide came in.
The efforts of the other pilot, a 52-year-old man from Clontarf, to land safely were called “remarkable” by the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Angus Mitchell.
“So, even though it’s terrible that four people have died and many families are in mourning this morning, things could have been much worse,” he said.
“It’s pretty amazing that one of the helicopters was able to land.”
Investigators will look into what was going on in the cockpits right before the crash and what procedures the pilots were supposed to follow.
They will look at footage and information from witnesses, the people who got off the plane alive, and even other tourists who took similar flights earlier in the day.
Mitchell said that based on the first video, it looked like the main rotor blade of the helicopter that was taking off and had only been in the air for about 20 seconds hit the front cockpit of the helicopter that was landing.
The impact broke the gearbox and one of the rotor blades, which caused the plane to fall out of the sky.
Mitchell said, “We have a good idea of what the two helicopters were doing during the most important parts of their flights, but we still don’t know why this happened, how far each pilot could see, or what was going on inside the cabins at the time.” These details will help us figure out what may have been a contributing factor.
“But it’s too soon in the investigation to start making guesses.”
