Beaver seaplane claims lives of second British family
An aircraft that crashed in Sydney on Sunday, killing five British tourists and the pilot, was the same model as one that claimed the lives of another British family when it ploughed into a wood in Canada two years ago.
Air accident investigators in Australia plan to examine the wreckage of the De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver to try to find out why it nosedived into the Hawkesbury River, about 50 kilometres north of Sydney, killing Richard Cousins, 58, his sons Edward, 22, and William 25, his fiancee Emma Bowden, 48, and her 11-year-old daughter Heather on New Year’s Eve.
The pilot, 44-year-old Gareth Morgan, who was from Canada, also died in the crash.
The 55-year-old seaplane had been chartered by Mr Cousins, the retiring chief executive of the £25 billion Compass catering group, to take the family, from Tooting in southwest London, to dine at an exclusive restaurant in Jerusalem Bay, about 30 miles north of Sydney.
Eyewitnesses said that the seaplane did a sudden right-hand turn before nosediving into the water at about 3.10pm near the Jerusalem Bay inlet, about two miles from the restaurant.
Investigators will release a preliminary report in about 30 days.
"The full sequence of events leading up to the accident is not fully understood at this stage," said Australian Transport Safety Bureau executive director Nat Nagy said.
The single-engine aircraft belonged to sightseeing flight company Sydney Seaplanes, which offers scenic flights over local tourist attractions. Its flights have been grounded since the accident.
The same model aircraft had crashed into a wood near Quebec in Canada in August 2015 after stalling during a steep turn while on a sightseeing trip.
Tourists Fiona Hewitt, 52, her husband Richard, 50, and children Harry, 14 and Felicity, 17, all from Milton Keynes, died in the accident as well as the pilot.
A~report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada published in September details 31 deaths in nine seperate fatal incidents involving the DHC-2 Beaver, in which it stalled and crashed.
It reported another three crashes in which there were no fatalities.
As a result of the investigation, all commercial DHC-2 aircraft in Canada were required to be fitted with a stall warning system that emits an alarm when the plane is about to go into a stall.
It is not clear if the Australian seaplane had such a system fitted although its operator Sydney Seaplanes states on its website that all its DHC-2s are ‘equipped with the latest technology’.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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