"We welcome the release of two interim reports on the Alpine Helicopters accidents earlier this year, but note they are interim and that the final reports are still some time away,’ said John Nicholson, Chief Executive of Aviation New Zealand.

Both accidents were tragic for the Wallis, Hondelink and Theobald families, their friends and the businesses with which they were involved. It is important that we learn from the accidents and that where possible, we put in place procedures to ensure they don’t happen again.

The interim reports are an important step in that process but we can’t take definitive actions until the final reports are out and we’ve looked through the causes and recommendations.

In this case:

the Robinson R44 interim report states that ‘no new safety issue or recommendation has been identified at this stage of the enquiry’ and notes that a number of lines of inquiry are being progressed. We are aware that Robinson Helicopters was put on the TAIC watchlist in 2016.

MDHI (Hughes) 369D interim report notes that the CAA has published a safety notice ‘Loose items can be fatal’, recommends that the CAA urgently reminds aviation participants of the importance of reporting incidents and notes that several other lines of inquiry are being progressed.

Thorough investigation and timely delivery are the challenges faced by TAIC in finalising both reports.

In the meantime, we will be reminding our members of the recently published CAA safety notice about loose items and the importance of reporting incidents.

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