Survival chance of crashed helicopter crew 'zero probably, nearly' says pilot Sir Richard Hayes

Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Otago rescue helicopters landing at Southland Hospital with the rescued Southern Lakes Helicopters team that crashed near Auckland Islands.

The survival of three crew whose helicopter crashed into the Southern Ocean is 'absolutely incredible', Southern Lakes Helicopters boss Sir Richard Hayes says.

Helicopter pilot Andrew Hefford, paramedic John Lambeth and winch operator Lester Stevens were onboard the chopper that crashed off the Auckland Islands about an hour after dark on Monday night.

They were spotted on a beach on Auckland Island about 11am Tuesday by Hayes and his crew on a helicopter searching for them. They spent the night in Southland Hospital.

The chances of the three men surviving was 'zero probably, nearly', Hayes told The AM Show on Wednesday.

**READ MORE:

Sir Richard (Hannibal) Hayes of Te Anau. (File photo)

* Helicopter trio who survived Auckland Islands crash arrive at hospital

* Survival on 'inhospitable' Auckland Islands after helicopter crash is 'remarkable'**

'We still haven't worked out what speed they were doing when they hit the water, but at night in an aircraft accident to survive the impact and to have three crew extract themselves, and then swim ashore is pretty miraculous. It's just unheard of.

'There's lesser accidents with worse results that we've seen throughout the years. But this one was right up there. It's incredible, just absolutely incredible that they did survive this one and to be able to survive the night and to be all pretty much intact when we arrived yesterday.' Hayes said.

Otago Rescue helicopters arrive at Southland Hospital on Tuesday with the three men who survived chopper crash in the Southern Ocean.

He spent pretty much the entire flight going down expecting not to find any survivors.

'There was no communications at all coming back, and as the night wore on things were not looking very good.

Hayes had flown the profile from the tracking device onboard the crashed helicopter to intercept that and turn into the landing area at Sandy Bay. 'When one of my crewmen in the back saw orange figures on the beach, and he went through in the form of saying, 'I see them, I see them, I see them on the beach, there's two standing on the beach about a kilometre away'.

''Just the feeling to see three of our crew standing on the beach was just unbelievable,' Hayes told The AM Show.

From what he understood from the crew, although he had not had a full debrief, the helicopter sat on the water for up to two minutes after crashing about an hour after dark. Winch operator Stevens couldn't remember how he got out, but he came to in the water.

'Then they huddled together. I think they sort of sat on the aircraft, which might have obviously inverted… 'They huddled together and swam ashore, which took about 20 minutes.'

The immersion suits they were wearing kept them 'warm to a degree' in the frigid sub-Antarctic waters.

'They flashed lights at the boat, but the boat didn't come into the bay far enough because of the conditions and the shallowness of the water, so they unfortunately weren't seen until we arrived on scene about 11 o'clock yesterday [Tuesday],' Hayes said.

When the rescue helicopter got to the men 'they were all trying to talk at once, and so were we. They said you're one of the best sounds we've ever heard in our life right at the moment'.