Outback Wrangler’s Matt Wright and Mick Burns offered private meeting with CASA bosses before fatal chopper crash

Just months before Chris Wilson’s death, an insider arranged a meeting with CASA bosses seeking flight rule exemptions.

Chris Wilson, Matt Wright and Mick Burns in 2016. Picture - Facebook

A Civil Aviation Safety Authority Board member facilitated a private meeting between his mates – Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright and “crocodile king” Mick Burns – with CASA’s new chief executive while the pair had applications for exemptions under consideration and just months before the chopper crash that killed Netflix star Chris Wilson.

Emails released to The Australian through Freedom of Information reveal that CASA board member Michael Bridge offered Mr Burns an opportunity to brief chief executive Pip Spence, board chair Tony Mathews and board member Elizabeth Hallett on his crocodile-farming operations and share his concerns about the looming new flight rules, which were set to impact his lucrative crocodile egg collecting business.

Mr Wright also took Ms Spence, CEO and Director of Aviation Safety, and two board members on a one-hour chopper flight around Darwin to show them the scale of Mr Burns’ operations, which supply crocodile skins to French fashion labels including Louis Vuitton and Hermes.

According to the documents released under FoI, the briefing and chopper flight were arranged with just one email.

A month before CASA’s Northern Territory trip, Mr Bridge emailed Mr Burns – who he also sits alongside on the NT Tourism Board – suggesting his friend meet CASA bosses to share his “concerns and issues” about the new Part 138 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations.

The new rules stipulate that collecting crocodile eggs using a person in a sling can only be performed with the safer and more expensive turbine engine-powered helicopters.

On May 26, 2021 Mr Bridge emailed Mr Burns, telling him to “get something together to address the foreseeable issues” ahead of CASA’s visit.

CASA Board member Michael Bridge. Picture: Supplied.

“As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we have the entire CASA board and executive team coming to Darwin from 21st to 23rd of June (Board meeting on 22nd June),” he wrote.

“I have now spoken with the new CEO/DAS … Pip Spence, and she is keen to take up both my suggestions of a Hardy Aviation RPT flight to the Tiwi Islands and back on Monday afternoon and then a meeting/presentation from the Top-End Helicopter industry on the Wednesday morning (I said specifically highlighting some of the concerns and issues associated with the new regulations).

“In my view, this is a once-off opportunity given that my tenure on the board is currently due to expire in October and the new regs are slated for 3rd December 2021.”

The next day Mr Burns, a former policeman, replied that he would call Mr Bridge for advice on the format of the visit. “I agree a great opportunity and something the industry should do well to participate in,” he wrote.

In response to the FoI application, CASA said this was the only email exchanged about the crocodile farm visit and helicopter flight prior to the event, which was mostly arranged over the phone.

Immediately after the crocodile farm visit and helicopter flight, Ms Spence – appointed chief executive a week earlier – asked CASA chief financial officer Simon Frawley whether she needed to “follow up any costs”.

“As discussed briefly, earlier today [redacted] organised for [redacted] to be briefed by [redacted] of Crocodile Farms NT on their operations and the implications of the new flight operations regulations (as they relate to Human External Cargo operations for the collection of crocodile eggs),” she emailed him that night.

“As part of the briefing [redacted] had organised a helicopter tour … for us to see the conditions for the collection of eggs, as well as the scale of the CFNT’s operations.

“The pilot was [redacted] (who has a media profile as the crocodile wrangler).

“Please let me know if you think I should follow up any costs.”

In an email CASA deputy chief financial officer Chris Garner said he believed it would be appropriate to record the “excursion” as an “instance where the CASA board met with an industry member and was provided the opportunity to understand the operator’s business better”, and recommended publishing it on the gifts and benefits register for transparency.

In a separate email Ms Hallett asked for the crocodile farm visit and helicopter flight to be recorded on the gifts and benefits register with a declaration about Burns’ and Wrights’ pending CASA applications, however this was not mentioned when published on the public register.

In another email Mr Frawley told Ms Spence, in relation to the conflict issue, that “to the best of our knowledge” there had been no interference with any applications CASA was processing.

Less than a fortnight after the Darwin trip, the board’s chair wrote to Mr Burns to personally thank him for the opportunity to visit his business and “get a ‘bird’s-eye’ view of your operations”.

“Mick, I wish you well in meeting the challenges you identified and successfully achieving your business objectives,” Mr Mathews wrote.

Chris Wilson with his two sons in December 2021. Supplied.

This month The Australian revealed that just weeks after CASA’s Darwin visit, the aviation safety regulator granted Mr Burns, Mr Wright and another mate – pilot Michael Burbidge – three-year exemptions to the new rules, which allowed them to continue collecting crocodile eggs with someone hanging from their piston engine-powered helicopters.

Months later, in February 2022, Wilson was killed when Mr Wright’s piston engine-powered Robinson R44 Raven II crashed during a crocodile egg collecting mission at West Arnhem Land. Pilot Sebastian Robinson was critically injured.

Mr Wright’s company, Helibrook, remains under CASA investigation over the fatal crash.

The destroyed chopper was contracted to Mr Burns’ company, Wildlife Harvesting NT, at the time.

Mr Wright, 43, has been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, destroying evidence, fabricating evidence, unlawfully entering a building, unlawfully entering a dwelling, making a false declaration and interfering with witnesses in a criminal investigation or court process by making threats/reprisals.

He is due back in the Darwin Local Court on Wednesday.

A CASA spokesperson said on Tuesday night that the agency had “robust conflict-of-interest processes in place for staff and board members, which ensure that any perceived or actual conflict is appropriately managed”.

“The applications allowing collection of crocodile eggs were not exemptions but renewals of longstanding approvals held by a number of operators,” the spokesperson said. “They were handled as a routine matter by a CASA staff member.”