Cairns helicopter crash: Nautilus CEO responds to ATSB investigations
The boss of Nautilus Aviation has responded to the ATSB’s investigation into a fatal hotel chopper crash in Cairns, as he opened up on the possibility of uncovering the pilot’s motive.
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The boss of Nautilus Aviation says there will be no further investigations into the fatal chopper crash involving a former staff member, stating “we’ll never know” the pilot’s real motive.
The company’s chief executive Aaron Finn said he was “fully aware” of the outcome of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s report into the August 12 incident – where Nautilus ground handler Blake Wilson, 23, crashed a Robinson R44 into DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in the early hours of the morning.
He said it wasn’t until Thursday morning when ATSB released its findings, that he became aware of the toxicology results, but wasn’t surprised by the presence of alcohol.
“I don’t think it was any surprise that something was involved in the decision making of Blake that night,” Mr Finn said.
The report found Mr Wilson had departed the city for his own residence about 11pm and then later drove to the hangar at Cairns Airport General Aviation about 1am.
Mr Finn had previously told the Cairns Post when he arrived at the hangar later that morning he couldn’t see any personal vehicles belonging to staff, which prolonged identifying the individual involved.
“It was later found in the days following that he’d actually driven a work vehicle home, because he was catching a flight (to Horn Island for his new role) the next day,” Mr Finn said.
“We didn’t notice anything untowards, because it was only company vehicles parked at the hangar that morning.”
While the ATSB investigation was focused on the technical side of the incident to identify industry-specific safety issues, Mr Finn said he would not be conducting any further internal reviews to determine Mr Wilson’s motive.
“No, there’s sort of nothing to see in that respect. We’ve done our investigations and so have the police and ATSB so I think it’s something that we’ll never know unfortunately, I don’t think any investigation is going to find any difference,” he said.
“All this comes down to human factors and decision making, and you can’t wrap everything in bubble wrap, there’s got to be a level of trust there.”
Mr Finn said he would not be reviewing staff recruitment protocols and was confident with the systems his company had in place.
“We’ve always had pretty stringent recruitment processes … I think this one is just really left field.”
The ATSB findings also confirmed the flight path of the doomed chopper, which appeared to follow the shape of a crudely drawn penis.
Mr Finn said he became aware of the path once ATSB had shown him the graphic.
“He flew around town, what more can I say,” he said regarding the depiction.
Editor in chief of AirlineRatings.com Geoffrey Thomas said while the flight path seemed to have “no obvious logic,” it wasn’t uncommon for pilots to draw “a message”.
“When the last Qantas 747 left the country, they drew a kangaroo over the Pacific Ocean,” Mr Thomas said.
But he said what could have given precedent to Mr Wilson’s actions was when an Adelaide pilot in 2019 “drew” two phalluses, with the accompanying words “I’m bored”.
“I can’t say this pilot (Mr Wilson) was looking to do the same, but it begs the question,” Mr Thomas said.
“The flight path was so bizarre.”
Mr Thomas said because there were no other victims involved, he could not likely foresee any further investigation including Mr Wilson’s motive.
A Queensland Police Service spokeswoman said its investigations were ongoing and a report would be prepared for the coroner.
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Originally published as Cairns helicopter crash: Nautilus CEO responds to ATSB investigations
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