Investigators focus on last photographs taken by British seaplane crash victim
Photographs taken by one of the British victims of a seaplane crash in Sydney
on New Year’s Eve have helped investigators piece together what happened in the lead-up to the tragedy.
An interim report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) revealed
that a Canon digital camera had been recovered from inside the de Havilland
Canada DHC-2 Beaver, which plunged into water in Jerusalem Bay, 25 miles north of Sydney city centre, on December 31 last year.
Richard Cousins, the 58-year-old chief executive of FTSE 100 company Compass Group, died alongside his sons, Will and Edward, aged 25 and 23, his fiancee, Emma Bowden, 48, and her 11-year-old daughter Heather.
Investigators said police had been able to reenact part of the flight using
images from the camera, while several witness statements had also been gathered to determine the path the plane had travelled.
A preliminary report earlier this year said the plane had hit an area of water away from the expected and standard flight path, before colliding with the water in a near-vertical position.
The ATSB said its investigation would now look at “a number of factors surrounding the pilot’s health and medical history”.
ATSB executive director Nat Nagy said: “With no on-board data available from the aircraft itself, transport safety investigators have been able to use witness statements and images retrieved from one of the passenger’s cameras to determine what happened in the lead-up to this accident.
“The ATSB’s investigation is continuing and will now look at a number of factors surrounding the pilot’s health and medical history.
“We have engaged an aviation medical specialist to assist with reviewing the pilot’s medical records as well as the autopsy results, which the ATSB has recently received over the past month.
“That review is now under way and we expect the results to appear from that over the coming months.”
A final report, which will include any findings or recommendations, is expected to be released in the first half of next year.
