Nine News helicopter pilot Ben Harris, who was one of the first people on the scene, said the craft yawed strongly to the left shortly after take-off.
"You need to put a fair bit of 'pedal' in the aircraft when you take off and it looks like he just failed to do so," Mr Harris told the Nine News 11am bulletin.
That statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me, being that that's a R44 in the pic. The yaw should be to the right if he failed to apply sufficient anti-torque pedal during the pickup.