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Senator Malcolm Roberts has alleged several ‘breaches of the law’ in the deaths of four Australian Defence Force personnel during an MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash in 2023.
Senator Roberts levelled the allegations in the Senate on 1 September regarding documents reportedly sourced from a Comcare investigation into the accident.
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Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Captain Danniel Lyon, Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph “Phillip” Laycock and Corporal Alexander Naggs lost their lives when their Australian Army MRH-90 Taipan helicopter impacted waters near Lindeman Island, Queensland, on 28 July 2023.
The helicopter and its crew of four Australian Defence Force members from the 6th Aviation Regiment were part of a night training activity during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023.
“These (Comcare investigation documents) contain bombshell allegations that cast a real shadow on the prosecutor’s decision not to progress this case. The Comcare investigation lays out that Defence knew that the TopOwl head-up displays, especially with software version HMSD 5.10, could tell pilots the incorrect data on the helicopter; that the risk was controlled flight into terrain, into the ground, with the consequence of serious injury or death; that Defence overrode their own internal systems to field the equipment anyway; and that Bushman 83 were flying in conditions identified as the highest risk for this hazard,” he said.
“Defence knew TopOwl could malfunction in exactly the conditions in which Bushman 83 was flying, yet they rolled out the equipment anyway.
“It was probably illegal for Army aviation to roll out TopOwl in the way they did, When the test pilots refused to certify TopOwl with HMD 5.10 for airworthiness in the MRH-90 Taipans, that should have been the end of it.
“Army aviation does not have authority to overrule those airworthiness certifiers, yet they did, most likely in breach of the law that allows Army to operate helicopters.”
A previously released aviation safety investigation explored the details surrounding the incident and detailed that the Taipan helicopter, callsign Bushman 83, had been flying third in a four-helicopter formation when it impacted ocean in the vicinity of the Whitsunday Islands.
Visibility and situation awareness were considered a concern during the flight and the post-crash report found that a decision was made to close the cabin doors of the Taipan (usually left open and able to contribute to aircraft visibility) due to anticipated rain showers and wind chill factor.
The investigation concluded that the primary cause of the accident was an unrecognised loss of spatial orientation, commonly referred to as spatial disorientation (where a pilot is unaware of their actual orientation in relation to the surrounding environment).
Senator Roberts maintains that the resulting report released by the Defence Flight Safety Bureau was flawed because it did not consider that pilot training focused on ‘trusting your instruments’ in emergency situations and that TopOwl equipment has been ruled out of consideration in relation to the crash.
“The Army Aviation Test and Evaluation Section reported that TopOwl airworthiness code defects would likely result in multiple deaths if used in poor weather conditions, such as the conditions on the night of 28 July 2023, when an MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crew using TopOwl became disoriented and flew into the water, killing all on board,” he said.
“Once the system was assessed as being noncompliant with airworthiness codes, the head of army aviation, John Fenwick, did not have authority to release the unairworthy TopOwl system into service. Nonetheless he did so.
“He released it with the aid of his Director of Operational Airworthiness, David Lynch, and the head of the standards branch, Tony Norton.
“These persons fabricated a series of documents to support service release using ad hoc processes not approved under the Defence Aviation Safety Regulation. The documents falsely claimed the system was reassessed as safe to use when no airworthiness code assessment had taken place, no such reassessment was authorised under the Defence Aviation Safety Regulation and the system had not been assessed in poor weather conditions.
“This decision to release the unairworthy system and the associated risks were then obfuscated from the external scrutiny which the Defence Aviation Safety Regulation required, through failure to comply with defence mandated risk management processes and failure to record the risk decision on a central risk register.”
Senator Roberts also raised issues of crew sleep deprivation. A previous report had found that personnel on the aircraft had been awake for 15.5 hours and 14 hours at the time of the accident.
Report interviewees described the sleep environment of the crew as stretchers in tents of up to 18 people, located in an active civilian aerodrome. In addition, the accommodation was not air-conditioned and multiple interviewees reported interruptions to their sleep due to movements of other people in the tents who were on different sleep schedules, aircraft movements.
“All of the four men on board the ill-fated Taipan helicopter were likely experiencing hazardous levels of fatigue as a result of disruptive work patterns, burnout and rough sleeping conditions during the defence training exercise,” he said.
“The inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force inquiry heard the crew were sleeping next to an active fire station and operational airport in hot tents while trying to switch their body clocks to night flying mode.
“The Comcare investigation found Defence failed to follow a single reasonably practicable measure to manage fatigue and offered no less than six examples of protocols available.”
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says:Beyond appalling.