Sea World Helicopters crash: UK victim’s daughter sues company

The daughter of a man who died in the Sea World Helicopters collision with her new wife has told of her anguish in a court claim for damages.

• Editor’s view: Families’ high price

The daughter of a British man killed with his new wife in the Sea World Helicopters crash has told of her trauma at witnessing the collision first-hand and seeing their bodies on the sand, in an explosive lawsuit filed against the chopper company.

Jane Manns has detailed her anguish after organising the fateful joy flight for her father Ron Hughes and stepmother Diane Hughes and waving them off, only to see the two helicopters collide in mid-air above the Southport Broadwater.

She told of frantically scouring a sandbank where the helicopters crashed for her loved ones before seeing a body on the sand, covered in a white sheet with a woman’s arm protruding and a bracelet her (stepmother) had told her about just a day or two earlier.

The allegations are contained in a Supreme Court claim filed against Sea World Helicopters on behalf of Mrs Manns and her children.

The revelations follow this week’s release of a damning Australian Transport Safety Bureau report into the January 2023 disaster which claimed the lives of the Hugheses, Sydney woman Vanessa Tadros and Sea World Helicopters chief pilot Ash Jenkinson.

The report found a litany of “compounding risk failures” were to blame for the tragedy, including a faulty radio on Mr Jenkinson’s chopper and a flawed “see and avoid” collision prevention strategy.

Diane and Ron Hughes were among the victims.

In the claim for unspecified damages, which Sea World Helicopters is defending, Mrs Manns’ lawyers say newlyweds Ron and Diane Hughes arrived from the UK five days before the tragedy to stay with her and husband Benjamin and their children.

The claim states Mrs Manns, who operated Sea World Cruises with her husband, bought the joy flight vouchers as Christmas presents for her dad and stepmother.

On the day of what the claim describes as “the calamity”, Mrs Manns dropped the couple at the Sea World Helicopters terminal and parked the car before waving them off as they walked to the helipad with other passengers.

“That was the last time (Mrs Manns) saw them alive,” the claim states.

The claim alleges Mrs Mann was “in shock” as she saw and heard the two choppers collide 130ft (40m) above the ground.

It alleges she grabbed her youngest child from the car and ran into the terminal where a Sea World Helicopters staffer confirmed that Ron and Diane were among the passengers.

She had then looked through the window of the terminal to see two helicopters on the sandbank, one of which “appeared to be a wreck”.

“(Mrs Manns) looked frantically at the people on the sandbank in an attempt to identify Ron or anyone wearing a blue shirt and brown shorts as he had been wearing,” the claim states.

She made contact with her husband after several unsuccessful attempts before going across to the sandbank by boat with police.

Jane Manns, daughter of Ron Hughes

The claim alleges she combed the sandbank “in dread of the worst (and) an increasing state of panic” before seeing “a body on the sand covered in a white sheet, with the arm of a female person protruding from it”.

“(Mrs Manns) identified the body as being that of Diane from the bracelet on the arm, about which Diane had been telling (her) a day or two earlier,” the claim states.

“(She) saw another covered body next to that of Diane that she at first convinced herself was not that of Ron but later came to the realisation the body could only have been his.”

The claim states Mrs Mann kept frantically searching for her father but was directed to evacuate the sandbank due to the danger from leaking aviation fuel.

The claim states that Jane, Benjamin and their youngest child were waiting at the helicopter terminal when the news came through about 5pm that Ron and Diane were dead.

They then drove home to tell the three children that their grandparents “would not be returning home because they had been killed in the calamity”.

The claim alleges that as a result of the “violent and unexpected deaths” of Ron and Diane, Mrs Manns and her children suffered nervous shock, depression, PTSD, anxiety and mental distress for which Sea World Helicopters is liable.

It alleges they suffer nightmares and behavioural disorders, need ongoing medical treatment and have lost “some of the enjoyment and many of the amenities of life”.

In its defence, lawyers for Sea World Helicopters have dismissed the claim as “bad at law” and deny “any liability for any such damages”.

The chopper company admits Mr and Mrs Hughes died in the crash but deny most of the other allegations because it remains “uncertain as to (their) truth or otherwise”.

Peter Carter, director of Carter Capner Law which is representing Mrs Manns and her children, said the crash was “an accident waiting to happen”.

Mr Carter said while some safety issues uncovered by ATSB investigators such as a faulty radio were not immediately obvious, others such as the inherent risks of flying in congested air space “would have been obvious to anyone who spent more than five minutes thinking about the dangers to participants”.

“Neither Sea World Helicopters, (theme park operators) Village Roadshow or the Civil Aviation Safety Authority conducted any adequate risk assessment,” he said.

Mr Carter said the ATSB had “downplayed the failings of CASA”.

“CASA ought to have identified the risks long ago,” he said.

New Zealanders Elmarie and Riaan Steenberg and Marle Swart, who were injured in the crash after trying frantically to alert their pilot Michael James, have lodged separate damages claims against Sea World Helicopters.

Originally published as Sea World Helicopters crash: UK victim’s daughter sues company