Sea World Helicopter disaster: Family of Ron and Diane Hughes’ tribute to victims of chopper collision
The daughter Ron Hughes, who died with his wife in the Sea World Helicopters collision, reveals how they came to be on board. “So many things from that day that were so strange.”
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Ron Hughes had an infectious laugh, a big smile, loved his family and Everton Football Club.
The 65-year-old was “Peter Pan” to his family – the boy who wouldn’t grow up and was constantly in search of adventure and excitement.
Mr Hughes and Diane, his new bride of 18 months, arrived on the Gold Coast for a holiday ready to catch up on lost time with family after two years of Covid-enforced border closures.
Photos of them taken on New Year’s Eve in 2022 reveal a couple full of life and excited for the future.
Mr Hughes paused that night and took stock of his life with his eldest daughter, Gold Coast-based Jane Manns.
“Don’t take life for granted, wake up every day just thankful,” he told her as they enjoyed a night of celebrations on the Nerang River.
“He was getting reflective on life ‘I am getting older now and just wake up every morning and think, how lucky I’ve got another day’. That’s literally what he said (to me),” she recalled.
“It’s so weird looking back on that conversation.”
Less than 48 hours later, Mr and Mrs Hughes were dead in the Gold Coast’s helicopter collision tragedy above the Broadwater on January 2 which made headlines worldwide.
Hauntingly for Ms Manns, she had convinced them to change plans that day - they were never supposed to have been on the fatal flight.
A year on from their deaths in the sky above the Gold Coast, she joins her visiting siblings from the UK Faye, Gina and Phil to reveal they are still coming to terms with their devastating loss.
Speaking for the first time, they open up about the pair’s last-minute change of plans that still haunts them and how they want their father to be remembered.
ANATOMY OF A TRAGEDY
January 2 marks one year since the tragic collision of the two tourist trip helicopters over the Broadwater in front of thousands of onlookers enjoying a summer day.
The pair of Sea World Helicopter craft collided just before 2pm.
Mr and Mrs Hughes boarded their chopper alongside, Sydney’s Vanessa Tadros, her
son Nicky, Winnie de Silva, her son Leon and pilot Ash Jenkinson who was at the controls.
Just 20 seconds after takeoff, their helicopter hit another Sea World Helicopter, piloted by Michael James, which was coming in to land.
The main rotor of Mr Jenkinson’s helicopter hit the front of the other vehicle’s fuselage, shattering the canopy and showering Mr James’ passengers and him with glass.
The rotor sheared off in the collision, causing Mr Jenkinson’s crippled helicopter to plummet to the ground.
Ms de Silva, her son Leon and Nicky Tadros survived the crash. His mother Vanessa, Mr Jenkinson and the Hughes were all killed.
Mr James, against all odds, was able to successfully land his Airbus Eurocopter, saving the lives of his passengers.
A DAUGHTER’S GRIEF
Jane Manns remains haunted by the events that day and the “guilt” from convincing them to advance a scheduled helicopter joy flight by two days because the weather was good.
Mr Hughes and his wife were from Neston, Cheshire, a small village just outside Liverpool in northwest England and had long wanted to return to the Gold Coast again.
Covid border closures had delayed their trip but at long last they flew in and spent the final days of 2022 and the first of 2023 surrounded by family.
The trip was packed with activities, as they worked to soak up every valuable second of time with their loved ones.
“It was a good few days and a really good New Year’s Eve (because) we were trying to jam-pack in as much as we could,” Ms Manns said.
“Diane had done a full itinerary the minute they got here, we were doing something every single day.”
Ms Manns recalls of the events of January 2: “I was there. I saw it happen. It replays in my head every single day. – lots of guilt, lots of trauma (because) they weren’t supposed to go that day.
“That’s the biggest regret. The weather had been rubbish right up until that day, so when we woke up that morning and it was beautiful weather, I said you should go (on the chopper trip) today.
“It was the last minute, there were only two times available and that was one of them and that’s how they ended up on that helicopter.”
The Hughes had planned to take their helicopter ride two days after the fatal flight on January 4 but decided to advance their plans.
“There’s so many things from that day that were so strange – (it was) fate, I suppose,” Ms Manns said.
“We tried to take the boat there, the boat wouldn’t start, so I drove us there, while our little one fell asleep in the car, which is why I didn’t get out of the car.
“I just dropped them off right at the terminal door and parked right there and watched through the window.”
There were so many weird things that happened in the lead up to it and it replays over and over in my mind - it’s just did that actually happen?”
Ms Mann’s siblings were back in the UK at the time and woke to the news of the tragedy which had befallen their family half a world away.
A LOVE OF LIFE
Mr Hughes was born in the UK and was a father of four children and stepfather to his new wife’s children – Sian Long and Lewis Ainsworth.
A passionate golfer, he enjoyed a drink and was a devoted follower of Everton FC.
Phil Hughes, speaking on the Gold Coast on Monday during a visit to mark one year on, said his father was “full of life” while Ms Manns described him as “still thinking he was 25 years old”.
“He loved a lad’s golfing holiday … he was Peter Pan. He was never going to grow up.”
Another daughter Ms Cavanagh fondly recalls her father going so far as to convince his Liverpool-loving grandson Jacob to switch team allegiances with the gift of a Blues jersey.
“Jacob, my little boy, is a Liverpool supporter, we turned up at the pub one day and he had a Liverpool top on so the next thing for his Christmas present, dad turned up with an Everton top for him,” she said.
For 35 years he ran his own interior design company which specialised in carpets, blinds and other fittings.
Another visiting daughter Faye Hughes has now taken over its operations.
“I worked alongside him so I thought it was only right to carry it on for him,” she said.
“He worked so hard for it so I wanted to carry it on for him.”
Mr Hughes married Diane, a civil servant in 2021 after a customer set them up on a blind date over lunch.
She later told her family she “just knew” he was the one the minute she met him.
The pair travelled to the US for their honeymoon.
After becoming a couple, they travelled constantly.
“Especially in that last year, they did so much that they wanted to do,” Ms Hughes recalled.
Mr Hughes had travelled to the Gold Coast and Australia more than five times in the previous decade to see his daughter and her family, doting on his grandchildren at Christmas time.
“They just loved it so much (and) Dad would always say, ‘oh, if I was younger I’d move here in a heartbeat’ (because) he just loved it here.
“He really loved Burleigh and had that little picture of it in his kitchen.”
Mrs Hughes had been due to celebrate her 58th birthday with her family on January 9 a week after her death.
MOURNING A LOSS
The four children of Mr Hughes reunited in recent weeks for the Christmas of 2023 on the Gold Coast to spend the festive season and the anniversary of the loss of their father and his wife together.
They will lay flowers at the Broadwater and spend the day supporting each other through their grief.
They want people to remember their father for the way he was – not just a tourist who took a scenic chopper trip that fateful day: “A very cheeky smile, an infectious laugh, bright blue eyes and just full of life”.
INVESTIGATION LATEST
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is expected to release its next interim report into the circumstances of the collision on Tuesday.
Investigators have interviewed the survivors, as well as more than 80 witnesses, including first responders.
The ATSB’s initial report, which was released in March, found evidence the pilots may have been ‘flying blind” and that there had been no communication with each other in the lead-up to the tragedy.
The ATSB report is expected to hand down its findings in mid-2024 ahead of a coronial inquest.
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