Victorian plane and helicopter crashes from 2014 to 2023
More than a dozen people have been killed in horrific air crashes in Victoria. We examine some of the state’s most terrifying helicopter and plane accidents and why they happened.
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A Geelong man waved goodbye to his wife and stepson then watched helplessly as their helicopter collided with another chopper at Sea World.
It is another in a long list of horrifying plane and chopper crashes to take place over the past decade.
These are some of the worst to take place in Victoria in the past 10 years.
Mentone helicopter crash - 2022
A helicopter crashed on the roof of a 55-year-old woman’s Mentone home on November 30, 2022, while she was shopping at Bunnings and crushed the student pilot’s legs on impact.
Margaret Godfrey came home to discover her home had turned into an emergency scene.
“She’s in shock but she’s OK, she’s a bit shaken,” her daughter Meaghan said at the time.
Prior to being freed by emergency services, the student pilot spent an hour trapped inside the cabin of the wreckage of the Hughes 300 training chopper.
The man was admitted to the Alfred Hospital in a stable condition at the end of November.
The pilot was discharged in December and hopes to return to the skies.
The chopper was operated by The Helicopter Group.
Investigators believed the pilot missed his destination at the Moorabbin Airport and was performing a “go-around” when he crashed into the home.
Gippsland plane crash - 2022
On February 23, 2022, a 60-year-old Leongatha man died after his crop-dusting plane crashed at Seaview in Gippsland.
About 7.15am that morning, the plane crashed near Grand Ridge Road in rugged terrain, police said.
The pilot was the sole occupant of the aircraft.
Lucyvale plane crash - 2022
Mathew Farrell was killed in a light plane crash after he departed from the Mount Beauty Airport about 12pm on September 18, 2022.
A talented photographer and cinematographer with a passion for adventure, Mr Farrell also worked for the Mercury in Tasmania.
After Mr Farrell failed to arrive at his destination in New South Wales, an urgent search was conducted.
The wreckage of his plane was found in dense bushland west of Lucyvale about 10am on September 19.
“I was always impressed with what he was up to, and he always did what made him happy, and if it didn‘t, he would look for the positive side either way,” First Lieutenant said.
Coldstream Aerodrome emergency landing - 2022
A pilot walked away from an emergency landing in Yarra Valley in December.
The light plane crashed into a paddock north of Coldstream aerodrome on December 21,
A rapid response was provided by emergency services, including police, firefighters and paramedics.
Mt Disappointment helicopter crash - 2022
An accident took the lives of five people in a helicopter crash near Mt Disappointment in the first quarter of 2022.
Two charter flights - operated by Victorian family-owned business Microflite - were travelling in convoy to Yarrawonga when one helicopter disappeared over a state forest on March 21.
Sydney businessman and lawyer, Nicholas Vasudeva, helicopter pilot Dean Neal, founder and CEO of AXIchain Linda Woodford, Warragul chairman of Radfords Paul Troja and Ian Perry were killed.
Their remains were removed from the scene of the crash in early April, with the delay due to weather.
The flights departed from the Moorabbin Airport just after 7am, before picking up the passengers from the Melbourne city helipad on the Yarra River.
Ambulance Victoria was called to the incident just after 9.30am, but it took the aerial search crews more than two hours to find the site near Blair’s Hut picnic area.
“It was a confronting scene,” Acting Inspector Josh Langelaan said.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said it “represented one of the worst in Victoria’s history.”
Moorabbin Airport nosedive - 2021
The pilot of a light plane was freed after losing control of his aircraft when it nosedived, struck a tree and flipped on its roof in Heatherton, causing him to slip in and out of consciousness back on June 22, 2021.
The man was rushed to Alfred hospital in stable condition with cuts, bruises and a gash on his head and felt like “the luckiest man alive”.
The sole occupant of the aircraft, a man in his mid-50s, had taken off from Moorabbin Airport about 12pm.
He had experienced significant trouble with his Piper PA-32 Cherokee Six within a few minutes of leaving the airport.
The man crashed into a tree near Henry St after flying over a golf course.
An Ambulance Victoria clinical support officer said it was difficult to locate the actual crash site.
The support officer also said at the time the man was “too confused” to talk about what had possibly caused the accident.
“The plane was pretty much torn apart. He was trapped for approximately 12 minutes before we were able to get a spine board and get him out,” the support officer said.
East Gippsland helicopter crash - 2020
A helicopter crashed in East Gippsland on September 16, 2020.
Emergency services responded to the crash in Stirling, 60km north of Bairnsdale.
Authorities received calls about the incident shortly after 3pm.
The scene was attended by multiple SES crews, ambulances and the CFA.
The pilot of the Bell 206 helicopter suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Gippsland helicopter crash - 2019
A firefighting helicopter crashed into a Gippsland dam in late January of 2019, where three people suffered minor injuries.
The two pilots and an engineer onboard were from the US and Canada.
They were refueling the Aircrane when it crashed near Mt Gregory about 7pm.
Australia‘s 10 Erickson Aircrane firefighting helicopters were temporarily grounded, as authorities investigated the crash.
The choppers were being used to battle bushfires near the Thomson Dam, where the helicopter - named Christine - crashed.
Investigators feared thick smoke was behind the crash.
“There’s a number of hazards, obviously smoke and visibility, and operating in a smoky environment,” Deputy Chief Fire Officer Darrin McKenzie said.
Tooradin plane crash - 2019
A pilot from Skydive South East Melbourne, based at Tooradin Airfield, and four passengers walked away uninjured when a light plane failed and plunged to the ground about 11.40am on January 6, 2019.
The plane crashed at a property near Woodlot Lane, taking down two fences, a gate and a small gum tree.
The five people were “very lucky” to survive the crash, emergency workers said.
They managed to free themselves from the plane, which was leaking fuel, before the Tooradin CFA arrived.
Tooradin CFA First Lieutenant Tony Riley said the situation could have been much worse as he has seen other similar crashes end in multiple fatalities.
“They were very lucky,” First Lieutenant Riley said.
“They were in shock but they were in reasonably good nick”.
A total of 11 people had been booked to skydive on the same day, but all flights were cancelled after the crash.
Stawell Plane Crash - 2018
Trainee pilots Tarek Mohamed, 28, and Michael Hawthorne, 40, sustained life-threatening injuries in October 2018, after their single-engine aircraft crashed at Black Range near Stawell in Western Victoria.
Mr Hawthorne from Altona Meadows was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital following the crash.
Mr Mohamed, a Sydney man, was critically injured in the crash and went into a coma.
The doctors at Alfred Hospital told his family he was unlikely to survive but he beat the odds and was able to pull through.
“I was deemed the ‘living dead’ and a quadriplegic. Within three weeks, I woke up and shocked doctors by moving my right arm and talking fluently,” Mr Mohamed said.
The keen athlete required rods and screws in his back and face.
According to Wu Medical Center, Mr Mohamed underwent craniocerebral and lumbar surgery after the accident.
Following the operation, he regained facial and arm function, but lost sensation and movement in both legs and required a wheelchair.
In 2018, Soar Aviation released a statement saying: “The incident that occurred at Stawell has activated a comprehensive emergency response, which involves grounding all fleets.”
DFO plane crash - 2017
A plane that took off from Essendon Airport was in the air for less than 60 seconds when it plunged into a nearby shopping centre.
Pilot Max Quartermain was flying American mates Greg DeHaven, Russell Munsch, John Washburn and Glenn Garland to King Island to play golf when the Beechcraft B200 King Air crashed in February, erupting in a ball of flames and killing them instantly.
Mr Quartermain managed seven MAYDAY calls before it ploughed into Essendon’s DFO shopping precinct.
Air crash investigators revealed pilot error was behind the crash, with Mr Quartermain not doing a full cockpit checklist, and did not realise the aircraft’s rudder trim was in the full nose left position.
This meant upon take off, the plane was yawing to the left and once in the air was unable to get control as speeds increased.
Chelsea plane crash - 2014
An elderly pilot died instantly after his home-built light plane crashed into a house in Camp St, Chelsea, causing a massive burst of flames and huge black smoke in October 2014.
The plane caught fire after striking the house and damaging two vehicles.
A 70-year-old Hampton-East man, whose name was not released, died instantly.
About 1.25pm, the single-engine light aircraft crashed along the foreshore, Acting Inspector Janene Denton said.
CFA spokesman Andrew Delaney praised the heroic actions of the pilot.
He said the man had saved lives by appearing to deliberately guide the plane down as safely as possible.
“He did a good job of keeping away from other houses,” he said.
“If you think he missed power lines, he did a very good job.”
Paramedics treated 75-year-old resident Herta Nebert for emotional distress.
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