The final Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report into a mid-air helicopter collision on the Gold Coast has found a faulty radio antenna on one of the aircraft contributed to the collision. Four people died and nine were injured in the accident near Sea World in January 2023.
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00:00After a thorough investigation, the ATSB have determined there were a series of failures
00:07that led to the deadly collision here on the Broadwater in the January school holidays of
00:122023. One of the key contributing factors uncovered by investigators was a serious
00:18communication failure between the two aircrafts. It found there was a faulty radio antenna in the
00:24departing helicopter, which limited its transmission range and that meant radio calls between the
00:30pilots advising they were taking off and landing were not successfully broadcast. The second issue
00:36was visibility, which was limited for both pilots. The ATSB found that neither pilot had a direct line
00:43of sight to each other. This is because their views were obstructed due to the structure and layout of
00:49the cockpits. Finally, there were also issues with how the seatbelts were being worn. None of the
00:54passengers on the day were correctly restrained. While it can't be determined how much this
00:59contributed to the injuries or deaths, it has been uncovered that this is actually a systemic
01:04global issue within the industry. Now, the operator SeaWorld Helicopters has taken a number of safety
01:11actions in response to this accident, including creating new ground staff positions to provide
01:17pilots with traffic advisory information and new radio call protocols have been put into place.
01:23However, there are four safety recommendations which remain that the ATSB says need to be
01:29addressed. The most significant focus is on increasing opportunities for pilots to detect
01:35conflicting traffic. We would also like to see implementation of a formal process of how future
01:42changes to flight operations will be considered. Some of the families of the victims have reacted to
01:48the report saying it's brought them some clarity and a better understanding of what went wrong that day.