Twenty-three seconds of silence may have contributed to a mid-air helicopter collision that killed four people and injured nine others near Sea World on the Gold Coast.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has found no recordings of radio calls between pilots Ashley Jenkinson and Michael James in the moments before their choppers collided about 40 metres off the ground and crashed on Jan. 2.
James had been coming into land with six passengers and Jenkinson was taking off with seven people on board.
Being too low for air traffic control to guide them, the pair relied on radio calls and vision.
James, who survived the crash, remembers seeing passengers boarding his late colleague’s helicopter (XKQ) and thinking it would pass behind his aircraft….