ID :
202357
Fri, 08/19/2011 - 14:57
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/202357
The shortlink copeid
No survivors expected from fireball crash
SYDNEY (AAP) - Aug. 19 - No survivors are expected from the helicopter that crashed in a fireball in remote South Australia with three veterans of ABC News aboard.
But police say the intensity of the fire that engulfed the chopper near Lake Eyre means it could take several days before the bodies are formally identified.
Reporter Paul Lockyer, pilot Gary Ticehurst and cameraman John Bean were in the helicopter that crashed on Thursday night while they were filming a third documentary of Lake Eyre filling up with water.
"We are not expecting to find any survivors," Assistant Commissioner Neil Smith, of SA police, told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.
"We know that there was three people on the aircraft ... and we know that there are no people there now."
The wreckage is strewn across a large area, which is surrounded by boggy ground and water, and details are sketchy because satellite phone communication keeps dropping out, Mr Smith said.
Disaster identification experts had been sent to the area but positive identification could take several days.
"With the intense heat of the fire and the devastation of the crash scene this is not an easy task."
Before the crash the helicopter landed and those on board had a conversation with a tour guide and some people in the area, and then departed.
"When it was approximately two to three kilometres from the area, the tour guide ... noticed a large fire ball in the distance," he said.
Mr Smith said the guide and a nurse used a boat to get to the crash site, which was on dry land surrounded waters.
Outback tourism operator Rex Ellis says he was the guide that was first on the scene after the crash.
"They just took off and went pretty low on the other side of the river and then gradually went out of sight behind dunes," Mr Ellis told the ABC.
"We didn't see anything, just saw a glow and we realised that something pretty bad had happened."
He told the ABC he called the Flying Doctor, got in a boat and headed for the crash site.
"We had to sort of cross through about `half a K' of shallow water ... and then we had to sort of walk into the site."
He said it took about an hour and when he arrived it was clear there was nothing they could do.
Mr Smith said the guide had called emergency services by satellite phone.
A helicopter, carrying emergency and police personnel, was sent from Adelaide and arrived at about 2am (CST) and confirmed the incident.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) will investigate the crash and is en route to the site.
Mr Smith said that due to the communication problems and difficult terrain it would take several days to get a clearer picture of what happened.
"In the far north and the far west of the state it is always very challenging."
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Lockyer has worked as a correspondent in Washington, Singapore and throughout Asia and won a Logie Award for best TV reporter.
The three men were considered leaders in their fields.
Bean, who is married to an ABC staff member in Brisbane, has worked for the 7.30 Report, Catalyst, the New Inventors and Gardening Australia in his 20-year career with the broadcaster.
Ticehurst has close to 40 years of helicopter operational experience, which includes 30 years as chief pilot of Film Helicopters.
Lockyer was one of the ABC's most experienced and popular reporters.
He started at the ABC's Perth office in 1969 before moving to Sydney and then to Canberra in 1976, where he covered the fallout from the dismissal of the Whitlam government.
His career then took him to Indonesia, Washington, and then back to Australia in 1988, this time with the Nine Network.
More than a decade later he was back at the ABC, covering the Sydney Olympic Games - which earned him a Logie Award as the Most Outstanding TV News Reporter in 2000.
In 2011 he and his crew were the first media to fly into the town of Grantham, by helicopter, the morning after it had been all but destroyed by the massive floods that swept down the Lockyer Valley.
But police say the intensity of the fire that engulfed the chopper near Lake Eyre means it could take several days before the bodies are formally identified.
Reporter Paul Lockyer, pilot Gary Ticehurst and cameraman John Bean were in the helicopter that crashed on Thursday night while they were filming a third documentary of Lake Eyre filling up with water.
"We are not expecting to find any survivors," Assistant Commissioner Neil Smith, of SA police, told reporters in Adelaide on Friday.
"We know that there was three people on the aircraft ... and we know that there are no people there now."
The wreckage is strewn across a large area, which is surrounded by boggy ground and water, and details are sketchy because satellite phone communication keeps dropping out, Mr Smith said.
Disaster identification experts had been sent to the area but positive identification could take several days.
"With the intense heat of the fire and the devastation of the crash scene this is not an easy task."
Before the crash the helicopter landed and those on board had a conversation with a tour guide and some people in the area, and then departed.
"When it was approximately two to three kilometres from the area, the tour guide ... noticed a large fire ball in the distance," he said.
Mr Smith said the guide and a nurse used a boat to get to the crash site, which was on dry land surrounded waters.
Outback tourism operator Rex Ellis says he was the guide that was first on the scene after the crash.
"They just took off and went pretty low on the other side of the river and then gradually went out of sight behind dunes," Mr Ellis told the ABC.
"We didn't see anything, just saw a glow and we realised that something pretty bad had happened."
He told the ABC he called the Flying Doctor, got in a boat and headed for the crash site.
"We had to sort of cross through about `half a K' of shallow water ... and then we had to sort of walk into the site."
He said it took about an hour and when he arrived it was clear there was nothing they could do.
Mr Smith said the guide had called emergency services by satellite phone.
A helicopter, carrying emergency and police personnel, was sent from Adelaide and arrived at about 2am (CST) and confirmed the incident.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) will investigate the crash and is en route to the site.
Mr Smith said that due to the communication problems and difficult terrain it would take several days to get a clearer picture of what happened.
"In the far north and the far west of the state it is always very challenging."
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Lockyer has worked as a correspondent in Washington, Singapore and throughout Asia and won a Logie Award for best TV reporter.
The three men were considered leaders in their fields.
Bean, who is married to an ABC staff member in Brisbane, has worked for the 7.30 Report, Catalyst, the New Inventors and Gardening Australia in his 20-year career with the broadcaster.
Ticehurst has close to 40 years of helicopter operational experience, which includes 30 years as chief pilot of Film Helicopters.
Lockyer was one of the ABC's most experienced and popular reporters.
He started at the ABC's Perth office in 1969 before moving to Sydney and then to Canberra in 1976, where he covered the fallout from the dismissal of the Whitlam government.
His career then took him to Indonesia, Washington, and then back to Australia in 1988, this time with the Nine Network.
More than a decade later he was back at the ABC, covering the Sydney Olympic Games - which earned him a Logie Award as the Most Outstanding TV News Reporter in 2000.
In 2011 he and his crew were the first media to fly into the town of Grantham, by helicopter, the morning after it had been all but destroyed by the massive floods that swept down the Lockyer Valley.
