Flights were cancelled and chaos ensued after a single engine AS350BA Squirrel crashed at Hobart airport, killing one person and leaving another desperately clinging to life on Tuesday evening.
Tasmania Police Inspector John Ward that emergency services responded to a reports of a ‘serious crash’ at 5.23pm, and all traffic in and out of the area has been cancelled until further notice.
‘I understand it was approximately 200m off the ground when it nosedived towards the ground,’ he told the Mercury.
‘As a result, it crashed into the ground near the southern end of Hobart airport, approximately four metres off the tarmac.’
A helicopter crash in Hobart has killed one person and left another desperately clinging to life
Flights entering or leaving Hobart airport have been cancelled indefinitely, the ABC reported
A witness told police he saw a helicopter ‘come down hard’ on grass about five metres from the runway shortly before 6:00pm, according to ABC.
Police also confirmed that the passenger who survived the crash is now in the Royal Hobart Hospital with critical injuries, while the helicopter has been written off.
He also extended his sympathies to the family of the victim, and reaffirmed that authorities had interviewed three out of four eyewitnesses.
One witness, Adele Khoury, told media that she saw the helicopter came in from the Pittwater area.
It apparently flew to about tree height before performing a loop and descending into a nose dive ending in ‘a puff of smoke’.
The man in hospital is so far unable to speak to police due to being ‘in and out of consciousness’, but it is hoped that he will be fit for an interview in the next 48 hours.
Inspector Ward police were working through the night as part of the investigation and to clear the runway to allow the airport to reopen.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said, ‘A team of two Transport Safety Investigators from Brisbane and Canberra will travel to the site shortly to begin their investigation.’
There have been preliminary reports that the helicopter was performing aerial duties for the state’s emergency services at the time.
Passengers were told they could not stay at the airport because of ‘a full civil aviation inquiry’
Arrangements have been made to transfer some of the travellers to the airport at Launceston
Passengers are being advised to check with their individual airlines for travel information.
Melbourne-bound passenger Kurt Sutherland said that they were informed the airport would be unlikely to be open tomorrow, so arrangements have been made to transfer some travellers to Launceston.
Mr Sutherland also told media that passengers had been told they could not stay at the airport because there would be ‘a full civil aviation inquiry’.
Those who are stranded have been put up in hotels, while those who are able been asked to return home for the night,
ABC employee Anne Cordiner, who was at the airport when the crash happened, said ‘there were a couple of hundred people’ who had been waiting in the departure terminal for information and people were ‘calm’.