Chopper hits pole, flips on tarmac
SEVEN people were hurt when a helicopter hit a metal light pole at a remote airport yesterday, which flipped the craft, crushed the pilot's cabin, and sent off a deadly explosion of fibreglass and splintered rotor blades.
One man in a nearby Troopie was lucky to escape serious injury after debris punched though the windscreen like bullets, scratching his arm. A baggage handler loading one of two nearby metroliners is believed to have suffered cuts and a broken hand.
The crash happened at Wadeye's airstrip about 4.30pm.
"The first of the blades hitting the pole shot (the body of the helicopter) around 90 degrees and it half crushed the cabin. I heard the noise and we all just ran, ducked.
"The debris - the fibre glass, the blades - kept coming across the tarmac. Three of us straight away stepped behind a wall."
He and others who had been waiting to board onto the second plane ran to help the helicopter's occupants.
"The (pilot) cabin was crushed almost to their laps," Mr Irwin said. "They were very lucky."
Police and fire services attended the scene. Police said the pilot, two crew members, three passengers and a person nearby were taken to Wadeye's clinic with minor injuries.
Wadeye resident Mary Ayres, 60, saw the windscreen holes in the Troopie that Brother Vince was sitting in at the time.
"It was just like two bullets had just been shot through," she said.
Eyewitness - contractor Graham Irwin, 52 - was actually taking photos of the Super Puma as it was taxi-ing around the metroliners.
He caught a one-in-a-million shot of the blades as they bashed into the light pole - and then had to fling himself out of the way of deadly projectiles.
"It was a horrific accident and a miracle nothing happened, that no one was killed," he said.