Originally Posted by
Maisk Rotum
I'm on that part of the water frequently and see the process from sea level. It seems orderly and safe on any given day. Tragically what may have happened is a deadly cocktail of commercial pressure, complacency and long days of flying. Keep in mind this would have been one of the busiest days ever for this operation coming out of Covid and with a 100 % fleet increase. The challenge was to get through as many flights in a day. The descending helicopter would have had the departing one on the left and below it, thus obscured. The departing one likely would have been able to see the other one on his right and above, but with no 'relative motion' likely would not have been picked up in his peripheral vision. These guys do this dozens of times an hour so radio calls are likely to be perfunctory as all pilots expect they know what the others are doing. Throw in complacency from doing the job repetitively day in day out and it's a very tragic outcome.
Keeping in mind that speculation and conjecture on a forum named a 'Rumour Network' might be a given, it's important for me to correct this wild theory. In part so that a certain part of the Australian press, as clueless as they are, might not be tempted into writing more articles such as the one above. What makes me hopeful is that perhaps this comment, whilst highly uninformed comes from someone who sees things from 'the sea level'. However it's unfortunate and saddening that a publication decided to quote it after seeing so many better ones such as the one by @
SASless
I used to work on the Gold Coast, for an other operator. I now run a helicopter company in an other city nearby and I still fly around Gold Coast on a daily/weekly basis
I can not speak of what has happened on the day. What I can say is that I have the upmost respect for every single one of the pilots at Sea World. They are a team of true professionals. I have never seen them fly complacently. Because there are two operators in close proximity, the radio calls are definitely not 'perfunctory'. I have never had a situation where one of the pilots failed to respond to any one of my radio calls. And I have made thousands of them. The pilot who has passed away, was a true professional, a gentleman and was looked up to by many - myself included. Whilst I have never flown for them, I can attest the operation is not the 'get-through-as-many-flights-in-a-day-type'. To start listing 'fatigue, complacency, distraction, commercial pressure' without knowing if any of these factors had anything to do with the event is wrong, no matter how many trips around the sun the OP of the comment has taken; or how many thousands of hours they have logged
I hope we can reflect how as industry professionals, (or community if you will, since many here are not pilots), we should respond to such an event. The Australian, who's Journalists should know better, has already started the public trial by publishing the article above
EDIT: Below someone alleges that they never heard any departing/lifting radio calls from the aircraft. They say that there is no shared frequency that aircraft use. This is false. Those were broadcast on CTAF every time a helicopter lifted. The frequencies are published on aeronautical maps. Those radio calls are done by all the companies in the area. I believe it’s understandable that someone may miss a radio call or two. However due to the frequency and number of flights [and thus departing radio calls] that were being made it speaks more about OP and their airmanship than it does of anyone else. You can judge their comment on face value below