‘Utter devastation’ left in wake of midair explosion that was like ‘scene from a movie’

Two hero boaties who were among the first on the scene of the Sea World helicopter disaster say they’re still haunted by what they saw 12 months ago.

Two hero boaties who were among the first on the scene of the Sea World helicopter disaster say they’re still haunted by the memories 12 months on, and are calling for a major overhaul of joy flight safety rules.

Gold Coast locals Pat McCarthy and Dave Costa were boating on the Southport Broadwater with their families when they witnessed the horrifying mid-air collision between the two joy flight choppers on January 2 this year.

Gold Coast locals Dave Costa and Pat McCarthy were among the first on scene after two helicopters crashed in January. Picture: Supplied

The men and their families, who did not know each other, rushed to help rescue the survivors – risking their own lives to help free badly injured Victorian tourist Winnie de Silva and her 9-year-old son Leon amid fears leaking aviation fuel could spark a catastrophic explosion.

While she is still yet to meet the men, Ms de Silva has issued an emotional tribute to them from her home in Victoria for their incredible bravery.

The tragedy claimed the lives of Sea World Helicopters chief pilot Ash Jenkinson, British newlyweds Ron and Dianne Hughes and Sydney woman Vanessa Tadros.

A selfie Winnie de Silva and Leon de Silva took moments before their helicopter crashed near Sea World. Picture: Supplied

Mr McCarthy, who was on the Broadwater with daughters Ainsley, 21, and Ava, 17, told how he and Mr Costa “went into beast mode” after seeing the crash from their boats about 100m away.

“My daughter, who’s a pilot student, said, ‘hey, dad, do those helicopters look pretty close together?’,” Mr McCathy said of the moments leading up to the disaster.

“I looked up and I said, ‘yeah’, and I just looked down at the instruments on the boat for a moment and just heard the almighty crack in the bang and looked up straight away.

“We sort of felt like it was something being staged for Movie World or something. It was just a surrealistic, horrible, horrible crash with the midair explosion.”

The devasting scene after two Sea World helicopters crashed. Picture Glenn Hampson

Mr Costa recalled: “I actually thought it was a boat crash. I was sort of in disbelief that it was a helicopter crash. (We) rushed here to just a scene like absolutely out of a movie – utter devastation, debris everywhere.”

After gunning their boats to the sandbar where one chopper had crashed upside down and the other had landed safely, Mr McCarthy said they were confronted by a “pretty horrific scene … the worst scene you can imagine”.

“It became pretty apparent pretty quickly that there were going to be some survivors and (some who) probably wouldn’t,” he said.

“One of the things that really still plays with me is just how deathly silent it was … just all that noise and explosion and violence, and then it was just dead calm.”

Mr McCarthy’s partner Erica Stagg, a former flight attendant, performed CPR on some of the victims, while his daughters brought towels, chairs and drinks and helped comfort the survivors.

Mr Costa pulled Mr and Mrs Hughes, Mrs Tadros and her 10-year-old son Nicholas from the wreckage of the crashed chopper. Leon was also rescued, badly injured but alive.

He said surviving pilot Michael James and one of his passengers were “sort of walking around bewildered”, covered in shrapnel, “and I sort of rushed them to the other side of the island”.

As his 17-year-old son Jordan comforted a critically-injured Nicholas, Mr Costa worked frantically with Mr McCarthy to try to free Ms de Silva who was wedged beneath the helicopter by a jagged piece of perspex windshield that was perilously close to her throat.

The men used a piece of wreckage to try to dig her out, dousing her face with water as aviation fuel gushed over her.

“I remember coming back out from underneath (the helicopter) just being completely covered in petrol,” Mr McCarthy said.

“And I remember saying to Dave, ‘if this thing blows up, mate, turn right, run three metres and jump because that’s where the water is’. We expected it to go.

“My partner was yelling at me, going, ‘don’t go near it, don’t go near it – it’s going to explode’. But we just, for some reason, felt utterly compelled. The poor people were there and they had nobody or nothing and no hope. And at that point, I think we just felt we were the only hope.”

Mr McCarthy said one of his most poignant memories was seeing Leon’s legs sticking out from under the chopper, one red Nike shoe on and the other off.

“And I said, ‘there’s a little boy ... we gotta get him out,” he said.

He also vividly remembers comforting Winnie as he and Dave dug desperately to free her.

“I just remember her when Dave was speaking to her, she looked up and we said, ‘we’re going to get you out’,” he said.

“And she smiled and she had these big white, beautiful, bright white, pearly, perfect teeth. And I remember saying to her, ‘Winnie, show us that big smile again. Your boy’s OK, he’s going to be OK. You got to be there for him. Just hang in there.”

Mr McCarthy and Mr Costa said they hoped to reunite with Winnie and Leon to celebrate their miraculous survival.

Speaking from her home in Geelong, Ms de Silva said she was eternally grateful to the two boaties who helped rescue her and her son from the horror of the wreckage.

“I really want to share my gratitude with them (rescuers) and share so much love,” she said.

“One guy was holding my hand. I was just about giving up.

“He was holding my hand saying I was very brave.

“You would not expect anyone to risk their life like that, but they did.”

Mr Costa said he hoped the ongoing coronial and Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigations into the tragedy would lead to a major overhaul of joy flight safety rules.

“There needs to be – something has to be done,” he said.

“There has to be an observer on deck, directly communicating with the pilot, giving him clearance to land or take off. It should be all recorded.

“There’s not a day that you don’t forget about what we saw on that day.”

Pat McCarthy was in boat just metres from where the Sea World choppers collided midair. Picture: Adam Head

Mr McCarthy said he still had sleepless nights thinking about the tragedy and whether he and Mr Costa could have done any more to save those who died.

“I still think about it all the time (especially when I) come out on the Broadwater and I see the choppers, I see them fly overhead,” he said.

“Eventually I just sort of made peace (with the fact that we) did the best we could with the tools that we had at the time, given the circumstances.

“You’ve got to make your peace with that.”

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