Air safety investigators will be “painstakingly” piecing together the circumstances of a mid-air collision of two tourist helicopters at Sea World on the Gold Coast on Monday which led to the deaths of four people.
Queensland police said on Tuesday that the four people killed were the 40-year-old pilot, a 57-year-old woman and 65-year-old man from the UK and a 36-year-old woman from Glenmore Park in western Sydney.
Acting Insp Mark Campbell confirmed the UK couple were married and had a local next of kin. He said a 10-year-old boy who was in Gold Coast university hospital with serious injuries was related to the Glenmore Park woman.
The NSW woman has been identified by friends and family members as Vanessa Tadros, also known as Vanessa Geagea, and the UK couple as recently wed Ron and Diane Hughes from Liverpool.
A cousin of Tadros posted on Twitter that she had “passed away too soon in this horrific tragedy”.
One of her friends wrote on Facebook: “I’m so lost for words … rest in peace beautiful angel.”
A friend of Tadros’ husband shared her “deepest sympathy” to the family in another Facebook post.
Diane Hughes’ brother asked for his family to be given privacy, but said they were thankful “for the love and support we have received”.
“We are truly humbled at this heartbreaking time,” he said.
Two others who were on board the helicopter – a 33-year-old woman and nine-year-old boy – were transported to hospital with serious injuries.
The deceased pilot, Ashley Jenkinson, was a father who had instructed numerous novice pilots, and has been remembered as a “great mate” and “an absolute legend”.
Andy Taylor recalled the bond forged when the pair assisted victims of flooding in northern NSW in 2022.
“Today we lost one of the biggest legends, Ash Jenkinson, you were a gentleman!!” he said.
Colleague Penny Wilson said Jenkinson had “such golden of heart, cheeky sense of humour and always such a laugh to be around”.
“An amazing pilot,” former colleague Lucy Kuhn said. “Always so kind, helpful, and supportive. A true gentleman, and always willing to lend a hand.”
Neil de Silva said wife, Winnie, and his stepson had been on a quick holiday from Geelong West, in Victoria, and had survived the crash. The pair were on the same helicopter as those that were killed.
“Thankfully, they are both alive but have a lot of surgery ahead of them, which means the family will need to stay here on the Gold Coast and I won’t be able to return to work,” de Silva wrote on a fundraising page.
The other helicopter landed on the Broadwater sandbank with six people on board, including the 52-year-old pilot, a 27-year-old woman from Western Australia, and two families from New Zealand. One person on board was uninjured with the rest sustaining minor injuries.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner, Angus Mitchell, said investigators were still determining the exact sequence of events that led to the two helicopters colliding at approximately 2pm local time on Monday, but footage and damage seen by witnesses suggested the main rotor blade of the helicopter taking off collided with the front cockpit of the descending helicopter.
“Now, exactly whether that was the very first point of impact, we’re yet to determine,” Mitchell said. “But that in itself has led to the main rotor in the gearbox separating from the main helicopter which then had no lift and has fallen heavily to the ground.
“It has been on a sandbar. Exactly whether it’s hit the water or exactly what depth it was, I guess, is what we’ll determine based on the time of day that it occurred and exactly where on the sandbar.”
The second helicopter was able to manage to land on the sandbar, which Mitchell said was “quite remarkable”.
Rescuers had removed both helicopters from the sandbar to continue the investigation, but Mitchell said that part of the “trying circumstances” of the investigation was the tide came up overnight on to the sandbar.
“Whilst we did get a lot of that perishable evidence off the site last night and the stuff that we really do rely on, a lot of that 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.”
The Queensland police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, said it had been “a really terrible start to the year”, with the state experiencing tragedy after tragedy.
“I had my executive leadership team together this morning and we just spoke about how incredibly difficult the last few weeks have been,” she said.
“We obviously the death of our two police officers, Matt and Rachel. We had Emma Lovell’s murder … It has been incredibly, incredibly busy.”
Carroll said the investigation will be “meticulous” and examine “every aspect”, including the surroundings, the flying conditions and what was happening in the cockpit at the time.
“I ask the public if you have CCTV footage, if you are witnesses, if you have any evidence or anything that you can assist with the inquiries, please come forward,” she said.
– with AAP
