Dying pilot tries to clear his name after fatal plane crash

Posted

October 29, 2018 06:10:30

The owner of an aviation company involved in a plane crash that killed one pbadenger and injured three others has raised questions about evidence used by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to investigate him, his company and the pilot flying the plane.

Bruce Rhoades, who is dying of cancer, agreed to speak to a joint Fairfax and 7.30 investigation to share new information in an attempt to try and clear his name — and the name of the pilot who flew the plane — before he dies.

Mr Rhoades questioned the evidence which CASA relied on to cancel his licence and the licence of Les Woodall, who was flying the plane that crashed.

‘Both Les and I have been grossly abused by CASA’

A 29-year-old British backpacker died and two of the three other pbadengers, including pilot Les Woodall, were seriously injured when the Cessna 172 crashed near Queensland’s Middle Island.

Vision, which has never been seen publicly and obtained by the media investigation, captures the flight and the final moments before and after the plane crashed on January 10, 2017.

The crash sparked an immediate investigation by the transport safety investigator, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is yet to make a determination on why the plane crashed.

Queensland Police is also investigating the crash and there will be a coronial inquiry, expected to be held in the first quarter of next year.

CASA, the body that licences pilots and oversees safety, raised a few eyebrows when it launched its own investigation into the crash and released its findings — just 17 days after the crash.

CASA defended this action, saying the safety interests of the public were at the forefront of CASA’s decision making.

“I am very bitter about this,” Mr Rhoades said.

“I feel that both Les and I have been grossly abused by CASA.”

CASA accused Mr Rhoades’s company, Wyndham Aviation, of being “a serious and imminent risk to air safety”.

It claimed the plane exceeded its maximum take-off weight but a load and balance sheet for the flight shows it was 15 kilograms below the maximum take-off weight.

CASA said pbadengers were not weighed prior to the flight, but the pilots disagree.

CASA also said the fuel was contaminated, based on a sample collected in a used Coca-Cola bottle days after the accident.

And it determined that the pilot should have tried to land the plane in water, not on the beach, a move a number of aviation experts, contacted and shown the video, said could have been more dangerous.

After watching the video, former CASA employee Kenneth Pratt, who worked as an airworthiness inspector for 20 years before retiring in 2008, said landing in the water could have been even more disastrous.

“I don’t imagine that the pbadengers have vests or life preservers on so there would have been a potential for them to drown in an accident like that,” he said.

Mr Pratt said if the water was more than “four, five, six feet deep, the wheels would have dug in and the thing probably would have flipped which means it would have been upside down in the water”.

Pilot ‘saved three lives in 27 seconds’

Mr Rhoades, who was flying behind the plane that crashed, was on the scene within minutes and said the water was more than 1 metre deep.

He said from engine failure to the crash was 27 seconds.

Mr Rhoades believes Mr Woodall deserves credit for the fact that more lives were not lost.

“From 180 feet, with a failed engine, choices are very limited,” he said.

“[Woodall] made a choice and saved three lives in 27 seconds.”

CASA alleged that the plane was flying too low, which “significantly and unnecessarily raised the level of risk badociated with the flight because it meant that, in the event of an unanticipated in-flight upset (such as an engine failure) he would have only minimal altitude, and therefore time, to safely manage the upset”.

However, Mr Woodall said he was inspecting the beach for debris prior to landing, something the company had CASA approval to do.

Mr Woodall planned to use this evidence, and more, to appeal against the cancellation of his pilot’s licence in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

But in August, CASA offered him a confidential settlement if he dropped the legal action.

Fairfax and 7.30 understands the settlement did not require any admissions of wrongdoing or negligence.

And it allowed Mr Woodall to reapply for his pilot’s licence.

The settlement was made before the police, a coronial inquiry, or the official investigator, the ATSB, has finished their investigations into the accident.

Doing CPR on dead girl ‘haunts me’

Mr Rhoades, who has been given just weeks to live after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in the brain, said his life fell apart after the crash.

“The flashes I get the most, and I guess the thing that disturbs me the most, is doing CPR on that girl for so long,” he said.

“That, I guess, is the thing that comes back, if you like, to haunt me.”

When CASA cancelled his licence, it not only financially ruined him but destroyed his reputation as well.

Mr Rhoades has been flying for decades. He set up the company in 2008, and said over the years about 30,000 people had taken his chartered flights.

He said in the early days he clashed with CASA, which did not like his adrenalin flights.

More than a decade ago, in 2007, when Mr Rhoades worked for another company, CASA grounded him which resulted in him pleading guilty in the Magistrates Court to four charges.

He was directed to undertake theory and flight examinations to demonstrate that he had the necessary knowledge and skill to continue to hold those licences.

He pleaded guilty to administrative issues with his pilot’s log book and maintenance sheets. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of unauthorised commercial operations.

Mr Rhoades said he did charter flights but the company he worked for did not have a charter licence, something Mr Rhoades said he did not know and rectified once alerted.

He also let a tourist get a photo touching the controls mid-flight, which is not allowed.

He said he never did it again and has had a clean slate up until the 2017 plane crash.

The pilot who crashed, Les Woodall, had no incidents and a clean record.

Mr Rhoades said pbadengers enjoyed “rock and roll flights” but they weren’t aerobatic and before each flight pbadengers were asked to fill in a form if they wanted a flight which included a demonstration of a light aircraft’s ability within “normal” procedures.

Pbadengers signed the form on January 10, before setting off.

‘I thought I’d lost my son’

The ATSB released an interim report into the crash in March 2017, but it did not conclusively say what caused the accident.

It is up to the coroner to examine all the evidence and determine the cause of death and make any safety recommendations.

But Mr Rhoades believes there is one lesson CASA could take from his company’s accident.

“The pbadengers on the back of the aircraft were far more severely injured because they did not have over shoulder seat-belting in the back of the aircraft,” he said.

“If they mandate that all of those older aircraft all be fitted with that over shoulder seatbelt immediately … they’ve not done that.”

Families of the pbadengers on the flight were contacted for comment.

Only the father of a 13-year-old boy who survived the flight agreed to speak.

He is still suffering trauma.

“I thought I’d lost my son,” Jason Lonnon said.

“It still amazes me today that he’s still alive and walking.”

Mr Lonnon was on the second plane that landed minutes after the crash.

“It was a mess,” he said.

“It was like it had been chewed up by a dinosaur and spat out.”

Mr Rhoades said he decided to speak out because he is determined to restore his and Mr Woodall’s reputations, and ensure the truth of what happened is known.

“There’s Woody [Les Woodall] and myself being able to hold our heads up amongst our peer group in our own industry,” he said.

“The second reason is that the family of the dead girl in particular … I want to make sure that they know the truth.

“And a third reason, I just can not allow this culture of CASA to go on, without speaking up very, very loudly against it.”

Watch the story 7.30 tonight on ABCTV and iview.

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