The pilot's version from elsewhere:
Re: Rogue Helicopter
It has come to my attention that there is a growing online media storm surrounding the Mercury Island incident.
I'm Ben Simpson, the pilot of 5Y-BXE and I submit this report to add the human story behind the event.
Before I begin, I'd like to point out that during the flight planning stage sometime before this flight took place, I enlisted a local pilot/guide to accompany us throughout our safari in Namibia, as the country is new ground to me.
On the 20th April we set off from Wolvedans to explore the southern coast with a focus on finding interesting wrecks and whale skeletons.
As we neared Mercury Island my guide suggested crossing the water ad landing there - myself and my clients were interested so we flew to north end of the island. There's a building on that end and a guy appeared from the building and waved to us in friendly way. At this point our guide suggested we land. We thought it might be fun to offer the island man a cup of tea and find out what he was doing there. As I got in to the hover behind the spot, I realised there were some cormorants and a few penguins in the LZ, so I aborted after approx 10 seconds of hover flight and proceeded across the water to land at the beach opposite where there is an interesting wreck. Fully aware of the seals, I approached from the south and landed 300 meters away without a spooking a single seal into the water.
On landing in Luderitz an hour or so later, a live phone was handed to me and I was reprimanded by a researcher from the department of fisheries. I made my sincere apologies and explained as best I could how the error of judgement was made. I also offered to donate funds to the islands conservation project to do what little we could to right the alleged destruction caused. Needless to say I was shocked that the short hover could do the damage reported. I made clear that we weren't a bunch of hooligans tearing up Namibia for our own pleasure. In fact the week prior we donated 5 hours of heli time to Save the Rhino for their conservation efforts in Damara Land. The guy I spoke to was actually very good about it all, though did say he wanted to raise awareness among pilots and would contact the DCA. I gave him my reg and name as I'm not one to hide, and endeavor to face the consequences - after all despite "expert" guiding the responsibility does lie with me.
It actually turns out the island is not gazetted a "bird sanctuary" and in fact is not a proclaimed a National Park, which explains the lack of prohibited area markings on the chart.
Incidentally, the question about "what is a Kenya registered helicopter doing in Namibia", no less than any other South African operator, of which there are many, anywhere in Africa.
I just want to end this by saying - I am hugely involved with conservation in East Africa, much of my work is within sensitive areas and I do my best to avoid negatively influencing animal behavior or indeed destroying it. I'm mortified over the incident and only hope this will not prevent other operators from undertaking helicopter trips of a similar nature . My apologies to all rotor heads - as you know you don't always make friends flying helicopters in remote parts of Africa.
And finally be sure to give Mercury Island and all seal colonies in Namibia a wide berth!
Sincerely,
Ben Simpson
The are always 2 sides to a story........... at least!
Cheers