Army still suffers from complacency: probe

2 Aug 2012, 5:58 pm   -   Source: AAP

The head of the investigation into a Chinook crash that killed a young digger in Afghanistan says army aviation still suffers from unchecked complacency.

Two Australian soldiers who were ramp riding in a Chinook helicopter when it ran into trouble in Afghanistan desperately clutched each other's hands before one of them fell out of the aircraft and died.

Lieutenant Marcus Case, 26, had been in Afghanistan just three weeks when he was killed in a crash involving a helicopter from Rotary Wing Group 6 on May 30 last year on a trip to recover an American Black Hawk.

He was ramp riding in the rear of the Chinook when it began "porpoising" - its nose jolting up and down - as pilot Captain Stephen Young prepared for descent.

Lt Case fell out of the aircraft still attached to it with a strap, before it hit the ground and caught fire.

Aircrewman technician Sergeant Andrew Harvey was on the ramp with Lt Case.

He said Lt Case, who had been in Afghanistan operating the video camera for an unarmed aerial vehicle, came on the trip so he could see the terrain.

Sgt Harvey adjusted Lt Case's strap attaching him to the helicopter, checked it once they were sitting down, and the pair dangled their legs from the back of the ramp.

When the helicopter began the first of four porpoising episodes, the soldiers began scrambling back towards the inside of the aircraft.

"The oscillations were getting worse - by the third oscillation we were in quite a precarious position," Sgt Harvey told the Australian Defence Force commission of inquiry in Melbourne.

"It was at that stage (the third oscillation), I believe, that Lieutenant Case and myself grasped each other's hands.

"By the time the next oscillation started, by that stage I believe we were upside-down and we could no longer maintain that hold."

The pair held onto parts inside the helicopter before losing their grip.

Sgt Harvey said he was pinned to the roof when Lt Case fell out of the helicopter during the fourth oscillation.

Earlier on Thursday, the head of the investigation into the Chinook accident, Wing Commander Alf Jonas, said systemic failures in army aviation, including an unchecked level of complacency, were factors in a fatal Australian Black Hawk helicopter crash in Fiji in November 2006.

The Black Hawk crashed while attempting to land on HMAS Kanimbla, killing pilot Captain Mark Bingley and Special Air Service Trooper Joshua Porter.

"It does not appear to the Aviation Accident Investigation Team that anything has changed in any of these matters," Wing Commander Jonas said.

"There have been attempts, of course, to fix the system, but in fact the systematic failures within army aviation have continued."

The inquiry is expected to run for about two months.

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