The link to the 60 Minutes episode shared by Bravo73 may be unavailable to those of us in Australia, but the episode can now be viewed on
9now.com.au.
The footage from onboard VH-XH9 taken from back right seat by Riaan Steenberg was this time shown continuously from the moment that VH-XKQ first came into view on the video (apparently as it was just moving away from the departure helipad, with its turning rotors now seen much more clearly) until the moment of collision. This took only around 12.5 seconds. It really is quite rapid if you watch it and try to put yourself into the position of those on board the helicopter like Edward Swart who tried to warn the pilot.
I thought I might post some summarised key transcripts from Edward and Elmarie from this episode:
Edward Swart (sitting in one of the back centre seats): "I noticed the helicopter on the landing pad and… it was sitting there and the rotors were going and you didn’t think much of it… you’d think most probably… it will just wait until we land. So as we turned left to… come down to land, that is when I saw it took off and that is when I tried to reach the pilot to grab his attention… to tell him… there is another helicopter coming our way, but it was just too quick… You don’t know how to react in that situation, I just knew I had to warn him but… I think deep inside myself I knew it was too late… it came up with such a speed... From the point I saw him on the pad and the point that he took off and hit us it was just so fast, it was unbelievable…"
Elmarie Steenberg (sitting in front centre seat):
"I was looking at the views… and then I heard from the microphone and somebody saying: “on your left, on your left” and I thought it was something beautiful and I looked at the left and I saw the helicopter underneath me and I knew we were in serious trouble…"
In the footage by Riaan, it is now also more clearly seen that the LCD screen above the instrument console is displaying the view of the helicopter as seen from what must be the outer tip of the left horizontal stabiliser looking forward over the body and skids. The Wikipedia description of the accident also indicates there were three 'lipstick cameras' attached to the departing helicopter so presumably that was likewise the case for the arriving helicopter. 60 minutes also showed further distant footage of the collision, perhaps from a webcam or security camera somewhere as it was at a low frequency of images. So ATSB isn't likely to be short of any visual material to piece together the flight paths, blind spots etc.
Noting the interview with Elmarie, I am wondering if the pilots are able to isolate themselves from the discussion by the passengers over the intercom (to focus on air traffic communications)? If so, in this case, perhaps that was unfortunate.