Whakaari/White Island: Helicopter pilot said 'conditions perfect', but tremors prompt warning

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

Hero pilot Mark Law says he could get to the bodies on Whakaari/White Island in 20 minutes.

The conditions are perfect and he says he knows exactly where the bodies are.

But red tape and further volcanic tremors have put a halt to that, frustrating local experts, several with decades of intimate knowledge of the volcano that is believed to have claimed 14 lives.

On Wednesday morning, the Whakatāne helicopter pilot told Stuff he was perplexed as to why a recovery mission had not been undertaken.

* Whakaari/White Island: Pilot rushes to help but couldn't save friend

* Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption: Images from rescue helicopter crews**

'The conditions are perfect, I don't understand why [emergency services] wouldn't go - I'd go.

Helicopter pilot Mark Law talks about rescuing people in the wake of the Whakaari eruption. (Video first published December 11, 2019.)

'We could go do that now, so that's the frustrating part.

'The intensity has probably lessened. The southwesterly has probably blown the plume and the gas away, so you could probably walk around there without a gas mask on.'

But there has since been a 'significant increase' in volcanic tremor at Whaakari/White Island since 4am this morning, according to a GeoNet update.

'This has been accompanied by vigorous steaming and localised mud jetting in several of the craters created by the eruption on Monday. We interpret these signals as evidence of continued high gas pressures within the volcano,' the report says.

'The situation remains highly uncertain as to future activity. Eruptions in the next 24 hours are still likely to occur.'

Law acknowledged that, like with all other activities, everything has a risk.

He said he and several others have been taking tourists to Whakaari/White Island for years and they've all seen eruptions before.

Mark Law was one of three commercial helicopter pilots who courageously flew to the island immediately after the eruption, to evacuate patients.

'It's frustrating for the people who know the island.

'We've spent a big chunk of our lives taking people out for tours, for the most part it's the time of their life.

Tourism operator White Island Flights captured this image of the White Island eruption.

'It's brought a lot of income and support for our local community. We feel for them and we wanna go pick them up and get them out of there.'

Law, his colleague Jason Hill, and another local pilot Tom Storey flew to the island as soon as they heard it erupted.

On arrival, they saw people in distress, some lying, some sitting, and several with 'horrific-looking injuries'.

'It was a beautiful day, it was very easy to see the plume of gas and ash that was going on.

'Once we got inside the crater in a helicopter, it was reasonably ok to fly around but the more we went towards the crater area where the action was, the dustier and the more gaseous it got and visibility was quite low at that time. '

Once they learned emergency services were not heading out, they decided to save people themselves.

'We then decided to move the helicopters up to where most of the people were lying and in a distressed state.

Whakat`āne District mayor Judy Turner and helicopter pilot, Mark Law, at the cordon at Whakatāne Heads.

'And then three of us started loading people in helicopters. We put five people into one and Jason left for the hospital.

'I brought my helicopter up and we loaded five more into that and we left.'

Another two people were loaded into Storey's helicopter and he, too, left for Whakatāne Hospital.

Law said he was never worried about his own life, he just wanted to help.

'It was just, you know, to see so many people sitting and lying and desperately wanting something.

'All we wanted to do was get there and talk to them and comfort them and tell them, 'hey, we're here, we'll get you out'.'

Pictures of a tour helicopter on the island show it was blown off the helipad, covered in ash and its blades warped.

'If it's generally empty, it weighs a tonne and a half and so you can imagine the force to move 1.5 tonnes.

This 1.5 tonne tour helicopter was shunted off its helipad by the force of the eruption.

'And you've got humans that were exposed to that pressure - so you can start to imagine what was going on the island for those folks.'

Two local pilots will fly out today and help police to locate the bodies, he said.

Law hopes the recovery mission will take place soon, and although they've been stood down, he and other local pilots would help in a heartbeat.

'[Hayden Marshall-Inman] is there and he's a really really good friend of ours.

'He's a real top bloke and a real ambassador for New Zealand as far as tours go, taking people around White Island.

'He's there and we want to get him home.

'It's not difficult, it's just a matter of putting [t]hem in the helicopter and bringing them home.'