Crash report: The damaged helicopter is brought back to Trinity Wharf after it was salvaged.
A Cairns helicopter pilot who smashed his head into a side door and struggled against rising water after the chopper plunged into the sea had to manually free each of his three passengers, a safety report has revealed.
The Heli Charters Robinson 44 chopper had been forced to ditch into the ocean after the engine failed during a routine tourist flight to Green Island on January 3.
An Australian Transport Safety Bureau crash report revealed the pilot smashed his head into a side window upon impact with the ocean, breaking the window and causing water to rush into the cabin.
The pilot was then forced to remove each of his three passengers, believed to be Chinese tourists, from their seats and inflate their life jackets because they could not understand his instructions in English.
"He noticed fuel flowing from the helicopter but was unable to convey to the passengers the urgency of the situation, so he quickly pushed them into the water," the report stated.
"He swam away from the helicopter with the passengers and, after about 10 minutes, two fishermen in a small boat arrived and pulled them from the water."
The report stated a previous pilot had advised of a "slight vertical vibration of the main rotor" while flying the helicopter, but his failure to record the defect in a maintenance log meant the issue did not spark a mandatory maintenance inspection.
The report found the pilot decided to return to base soon after taking off from Cairns airport but the engine failed en route.
"The pilot reduced speed to 70 knots and, at about 4.15pm, transmitted a Mayday call, stating that he was ditching at the mouth of the Barron River," the report stated.
"The helicopter impacted the water about 300m from shore and rolled heavily on to its right side, breaking off one rotor blade and damaging the other."
The helicopter sank in about 3m of sea water and was salvaged four days later on January 7.
Charter company Heli Charters introduced a range of safety measures after the crash landing, including GPS-based flight monitoring system installed on passenger carrying aircraft, cutters for harnesses to be carried on all aircraft and safety briefings to be carried out in small groups of four to six passengers at a time.
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