Water bomber crash: vital evidence found at NSW site of Hercules C-130

Investigators locate a vital piece of evidence from the scene of the NSW crash which killed three US crewmen.

Wreckage from the Coulson Aviation C-130 water bomber that crashed at Peak View on Thursday killing its three US crewmen. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Investigators have retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of a large water bombing aircraft that crashed at Peak View in NSW on Thursday, killing three US crewmen.

The recorder is expected to play a crucial part in explaining why the Lockheed C-130 Hercules came down, moments after releasing its load of fire retardant on out-of-control bushfires northeast of Cooma.

New South Wales police handed over the crash site to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau on Saturday morning, to begin its examination of the wreckage.

ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood said investigator donned personal protective gear to access the site and were quickly rewarded.

“What we did find in that initial sweep this morning was the cockpit voice recorder near the tail section of the aircraft, so we removed the cockpit voice recorder and secured it,” said Commissioner Hood.

“We’ve now removed that to the ATSB’s technical facility in Canberra.”

A supplied image of ATSB Transport Safety Investigators retrieving the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of the C-130 Hercules air tanker plane. Picture: AAP

He said it was a priority to find the CVR but its usefulness would not be known till its contents were downloaded, which should happen on Sunday.

“The cockpit voice recorder could be very useful for us and it might not be very useful for us. It really depends what was said,” Commissioner Hood said.

“It will record the pilot, the co-pilot and the flight engineer’s discussions in the cockpit and it will record also any aural alarms sounding in the cockpit.”

An image of the crash scene. Picture: AFP

Relatives of the three men killed — Ian McBeth, Paul Clyde Hudson and Rick A. DeMorgan — began arriving in Sydney on Saturday, as well as the Canadian owners of Coulson Aviation who owned the C-130.

All will be offered the opportunity to visit the charred site where the C-130 came down in view of horrified members of the local fire brigade.

Commissioner Hood said investigators would head into Cooma on Sunday to obtain witness accounts of the crash.

Seven investigators have been assigned to the case, along with an Royal Australian Air Force engineer with C-130 expertise.

Crash investigation expert and senior lecturer at Central Queensland University Geoffrey Dell, said the sort of work conducted by the large water bombers had a unique set of risks.

“When you’re operating at low altitude where a fire could be creating its own weather patterns so you’ve got turbulence and windshear, you don’t need anything much to go wrong and you’re very quickly out of options, particularly because they’re low to the ground,” Dr Dell said.

“If something falls off the aeroplane, the crew doesn’t really have time to diagnose the problem. It’s going to be instinctive and if it works, fine, and if it doesn’t there’s no second chance.”

He said it was even possible a bird strike could occur at a low altitude that could do enough damage to cause major problems.

“It could be any number of things that caused this accident, it’s too early to say.”