Complaint videos sent to CASA show pilot Troy Thomas illegally landing on Cockatoo Island

Videos sent to CASA of unsafe flying in the Kimberley show the helicopters involved were not only owned by tourism stalwart Troy Thomas but, on at least one occasion, he was also the pilot.

Troy Thomas flying with Ernie Dingo while filming Going Places with Ernie Dingo at Horizontal Falls. CASA had investigated and dismissed a spate of dangerous flying allegations involving helicopters owned by Thomas and his companies a year before the ​Broome ​crash that killed him and 12-year-old Amber Millar.

Videos of unsafe flying – sent to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority with written complaints about dangerous incidents in the Kimberley – show the helicopters involved were not only owned by West Australian tourism stalwart Troy Thomas, but on at least one occasion he was also the pilot.

The Australian revealed last month CASA had investigated and dismissed a spate of dangerous flying allegations involving helicopters owned by Thomas and his companies a year before the Broome crash that killed him and 12-year-old Amber Millar.

Documents obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws revealed CASA in 2018 received five written complaints, accompanied by photo and video evidence, of “unsafe behaviour” involving aircraft badged Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures, which Thomas founded and owned at the time.

When The Australian last month revealed CASA dismissed the complaints in 2019, a year before his fatal crash, the regulator said it “refutes the allegations”.

“Each of the 2018 incidents was investigated and acted on by CASA and not one of them involved Mr Thomas,” a spokesperson said.

However, The Australian has now obtained video evidence – through a further Freedom of Information application – that appears to show Thomas as the pilot in at least one of the incidents.

The 2018 reports to CASA sparked a noncompliance investigation into Helibrook, the aviation business of Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright, because Thomas’s choppers were operating under his Air Operator’s Certificate.

Helibrook’s chief pilot from 2018, Fraser Kenworthy, yesterday told The Australian that he recalls the Cockatoo Island incident.

“I remember the day,” he said. “But you see the thing is, I was the chief pilot for the commercial operations but he (Thomas) wasn‘t a commercial pilot so he flew the same aircraft that we were using commercially but it had nothing to do with my operation.

“I never had to answer to anything that he was doing because his was a private operation … so ultimately it had nothing to do with me.”

Troy Thomas at Horizontal Falls in north WA. Picture: SBS

Last month CASA denied any knowledge of Thomas’s involvement in the incidents.

“CASA does not normally investigate the owners of aircraft involved in accidents or incidents – as many are owned under complex financial and shareholding arrangements,” the regulator said in a lengthy statement published on its website.

“CASA was aware of only one previous incident that Mr Thomas was involved in prior to his fatal accident. That incident resulted in enforcement action being taken against Mr Thomas.”

In one of the videos – filmed on July 2, 2018 – a pilot who appears to be Thomas lands his Robinson R44 Clipper II, registered VH-ZGY, on Cockatoo Island in Western Australia. The chopper’s passenger doors open, someone approaches, something yellow is put on the back seat and the pilot flies off.

At the time, a Cockatoo Island resident complained to CASA that the chopper made “an unauthorised landing on our property” and that it had happened multiple times “by the same operator in the past few weeks”.

Troy Thomas flying at Horizontal Falls in north WA. Picture: SBS

The other three videos supplied to CASA show helicopters badged Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures flying dangerously low and through narrow gorges at Horizontal Falls, about 270km northeast of Broome.

Footage filmed from another aircraft shows a helicopter – possibly VH-ZGY – flying dangerously low towards a 20m-wide gorge in the McLarty Range.

In an incident filmed from a boat at Talbot Bay, a helicopter flies back and forth through a narrow channel in the Horizontal Falls. “That’s close,” someone says as the chopper flies low through a narrow 10-metre wide cliff passage.

A person on board the boat below tells a companion to “film the chopper doing that stuff”.

“It’s really very illegal,” a man is heard saying. “It’s very, very illegal.”

Troy Thomas with Ernie Dingo at Horizontal Falls. Picture: Facebook

A separate video, filmed from another boat, captures the blue-looking helicopter flying low into a narrow gorge.

“You’re kidding,” someone on the boat says. “Even I know you can’t do that.”

In 2019, Thomas crashed the chopper he had landed on Cockatoo Island – VH-ZGY – off the top of his vessel High Calibre at Raft Point, north of Broome.

The incident, in which passengers were seriously injured and the aircraft was lost, was not reported to authorities.

CASA investigated a separate 2017 incident in which one of Thomas’s helicopters, VH-SCM, crashed off the top of a boat and into the water at Talbot Bay but never inspected the destroyed helicopter.

The written-off choppers belonged to Thomas’s company, Avanova Pty Ltd.

He operated five helicopters for private, business and commercial purposes.

Clint and Fiona Benbow with daughter Amber Millar who died in a chopper crash with Troy Thomas in July 2020. Picture: Supplied

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s final report into Thomas’s fatal Broome crash stated the 40-year-old had demonstrated “a high-risk appetite”, a history of noncompliance with aviation laws, was unlicensed to fly the destroyed Robinson R44 and knew there was a serious issue with it before taking off on that final fatal flight.

Last month, Amber’s parents, Fiona and Clint Benbow, said CASA had “blood on its hands” over their daughter’s death and called for an inquiry into the federal regulator over its perceived failure to act on complaints about Thomas.

They have also begged WA Coroner Ros Fogliani for a coronial inquest.

WA Premier Roger Cook recently said an inquest “looks like being the only vehicle that we can now rely upon to do that level of investigation”.

“There‘s an absolute dearth of people on the ground and commitment by CASA to investigate and follow up these things or to maintain a regulatory oversight of tourism and helicopter aviation generally,” he said.