Cause of fatal Fox Glacier helicopter crash still unclear
Friday, 27 November 2015
Two campervans and a car parked in Fox Glacier sit idle - they are reminders of the lives lost in a helicopter crash that killed seven a week ago.
In the days since, tourists came and went, parking up their vans and rental cars in the busy carpark beside the three vehicles, unaware of the tragedy that had unfolded.
Three pairs of tourists - Andrew Virco, 49, and his partner Katharine Walker, 51, of Cambridge in England; Nigel and Cynthia Charlton, 66 and 70, of Hampshire; and Sovannmony Leang, 27, and Josephine Gibson, 29, both from New South Wales - had arrived in Fox Glacier separately.
Last Saturday, they decided to take part in the small town's main attraction - a scenic flight over the 13 kilometre river of ice nestled between the Southern Alps and lush rainforest.
Since the lower parts of the melting glacier had become increasingly unstable, the only way tourists could walk on the ice was to get a helicopter ride to areas higher up the valley.
The three couples booked a trip for Saturday morning with Alpine Adventures and 28-year-old Squirrel helicopter pilot Mitch Gameren.
When the flight was overdue, Gameren's flatmate, Thomas Darling, took a chopper up to find them. What he came across would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.
His best mate and six passengers were killed when the helicopter crashed into an icy crevasse near a designated landing spot known as Chancellor's.
Distraught, he alerted the rescue coordination centre and an emergency service helicopter flew up to the crash site.
West Coast inspector John Canning said the emergency crews saw no sign of life and returned to Fox Glacier as the weather was too bad for them to land.
A police photographer managed to capture images of the scene, and one was released to the media after it was digitally altered to remove graphic content.
Canning told media a recovery operation would not be immediately possible.
The weather was intermittent and he would send crews up when it was safe. He refused to risk any more lives.
A break in the weather on Sunday allowed rescue personnel to recover four bodies that had been thrown from the helicopter. They were three women and one man who had been sitting in the back of the aircraft, Canning said.
Specialist disaster victim identification teams were brought in, and the tourists' vehicles were searched by police to gather DNA so they could be identified.
On the other side of the world, their families were visited by police and told their loved ones were dead.
They died visiting one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand, just five years after nine people were killed in another aircraft crash on Fox Glacier.
A review into that crash, involving a skydiving plane, was released last month. It unable to determine the exact cause of the crash.
In 2009, after 37 tourism deaths in New Zealand in four years, Prime Minister John Key ordered a government review of the adventure sector.
New regulations governing commercial adventure activities were approved in 2011, requiring operators to pass audits and register with WorkSafe New Zealand.
Almost 50,000 people fly over Fox Glacier every year, providing a vital boost to the West Coast economy. Locals say the ratio of flying accidents is low.
A day after the crash, Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said the West Coast's tourism industry would be seriously affected if lives continued to be lost.
'The operators have got to understand they have to take a hard look at health and safety so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. New health and safety laws have just been passed and now this has happened,' he said.
'West Coast Southern Alps terrain has to be treated very carefully and we can't afford to have mishaps like this.'
Rob Jewell, chairman of Glacier Country Tourism, said Kokshoorn's comments angered the industry and Fox Glacier locals.
'It was very unhelpful. I don't think he understands the tourism industry and commented without fully understanding what was going on,' he said.
Jewell echoed Prime Minister and Tourism Minister John Key's comments that the crash would not have a negative impact on New Zealand's tourism industry.
It was too early to say though whether the scenic helicopter tourism industry would be harmed.
'It's very early days. We still have to determine what was the cause of the accident,' he said.
**READ MORE:
* Fox Glacier crash wreckage heads to Wellington**
* **Tributes flow for helicopter pilot Mitch Gameren
* Air accidents near NZ glaciers
* Tourist group in dark over fatal crash
* Australian crash victim 'a big-brother figure'
* Family, friends and colleagues pay tribute to British tourists**
As the week wore on, the presence of media and police lingered in the idyllic village. Those involved kept hoping for another break in the weather so the bodies of three men still on the glacier could be returned to their families.
A short window on Wednesday gave specialist rescue teams time to erect a platform from where they could recover the victims and the wreckage.
The clouds finally dispersed on Thursday morning, allowing rescue teams to fly up and down to the crash site, carrying back the remaining bodies and finally the debris of the crashed helicopter.
Gameren's family travelled to Fox on Wednesday.
His stepfather, Kelly Bray, thanked the recovery crews for their 'huge effort' in making the recovery operation a success.
'It's been very humbling to see this time and effort that's gone into it. We've been overwhelmed by the amount of people and volunteers working on it. We're very grateful for what they've done.'
The bodies of all seven on board would be laid to rest by their grieving families as the crash investigation continued.
Police would return belongings to the families from the vehicles still parked at Fox Glacier carpark.