The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has unveiled more details, as extensive investigations continue into the Gold Coast’s horror helicopter collision that killed four people.
It’s been confirmed one of the helicopters was taking off, while another was landing when they crashed mid-air.
The first helicopter was taking off from the northernmost helipad, heading southwest, while the second was heading east towards the southernmost helipad to land.
The taking-off chopper’s main rotor blades collided with the landing helicopter, plunging the taking-off chopper at least 200 metres into the sandbank.
The landing helicopter miraculously managed to land upright on the same sandbank safely, despite significant damage to the front cockpit.
Commissioner Angus Mitchell says they are working tirelessly to try to piece it all together.
“The process now for the ATSB is to gather all the intelligence and all the evidence that we can,” Commissioner Mitchell says.
“We’d like to thank those of the community that were witnesses to the event who have come forward, those who have camera footage, CCTV off buildings… those will be very important for us to piece together what has occurred here.”
The taking-off helicopter had seven people on board, four of which were killed, and had only been in the air for around 20 seconds.
The landing helicopter had six people on board, who all survived and suffered just minor injuries.
Investigators admit it’s “extremely fortunate” more people weren’t killed.
Perishable evidence was able to be retrieved from the scene on the sandbar, with investigators racing the clock before the tide came in.
“They’ve both been on a sandbar, the tide has come up overnight,” Commissioner Mitchell says.
“While we did get a lot of the stuff that we really do rely on like the electronic recording equipment, we now have a painstaking job of trying to recreate exactly what’s occurred in the lead-up to this tragic start to the new year.”
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