Another Ex TAL Pilot seeks fame.
9:23PM Tuesday 14 April, 2009 Coast pilot escapes death in gyroplane crash
12:00a.m. 10th April 2009
| By Nikkii Joyce
Close Call: Australian Sports Rotorcraft Association operations manager Allan Wardill is back in the saddle, but staying on the ground, two days after a near fatal crash in his gyrocopter. Photo: Contributed
As his gyroplane plummeted 300 metres towards ice-cold Tasmanian waters, Sunshine Coast pilot Allan Wardill knew he would have more to do than merely survive the impact.
And that thought was not based on instinct. Mr Wardill, of Mooloolaba, knew from experience.
The 59-year-old is an air crash investigator.
"Six years ago a man survived when his gyrocopter crashed into water, but he wasn't able to release the harness and he drowned," Mr Wardill said.
The story ran through his mind on Monday as he sat, still strapped into his four-year-old machine, immersed upside down in the Tamar River.
Fifteen minutes earlier, Mr Wardill and a friend were preparing to take to the air to conduct a flight-plan safety check for this weekend's National Gyroplane Championships at Clarence Point.
"Mayday, mayday, I'm going down," were the only words Mr Wardill was able to relay before his gyroplane hit the water.
Mr Wardill said he was following Tasmanian Greg Mitchell when he heard a mechanical "clunk" in the rotor head.
He said no amount of his expertise could right the gyroplane, with nothing left for him to do but "brace myself" as the vertical gyroplane hit the river, rotors first.
"It doesn't matter that it's water; hitting it from that height dead-on would have been like hitting a brick wall," Mr Wardill said.
"The only reason I'm here is the rotors broke the water before I hit it."
Mr Wardill was able to free himself from the harness and when he broke the surface he began the 300-metre swim to shore. Horrified witnesses were already on their way to his rescue.
Miraculously, Mr Wardill suffered only bruising to his ribs, but his gyroplane remains at the bottom of the Tamar River.
Investigations into the crash will begin once the wreck is recovered, but not until after this weekend's 15th Australian Sports Rotorcraft Association National Gyroplane Championships, which begin today.
Mr Wardill said the phone conversation with his wife of 20 years, Deana, ended any hope of him competing.
"I told her 'I've been swimming' and she asked me 'voluntary or involuntary'," Mr Wardill said.
"I said the gyroplane was at the bottom of the river and she said what most wives would say if their husbands planned on going back up straight away," he said with a laugh.
But his days of soaring in the sky are far from over.
"Of course I'll be up there... strewth," Mr Wardill said, incredulous at the thought of anything otherwise.