Fatal Air Crash Described

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32315, 5 June 1970, Page 24

Fatal Air Crash Described

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON,

June 4. A few seconds before an American helicopter plunged into the side of Mount McClenan, in Antarctica on November 19, killing two men, including a National Film Unit director, there was “a sound like a truck backfiring,” the Wellington Coroner’s Court was told today.

One of the survivors of the crash, Mr Samuel Grau, a National Film Unit cameraman, was giving evidence into the death of Mr Jeremy Sykes, the film unit director, of Seatoun, Wellington.

The other man killed was an American scientist.

The Coroner (Mr J. Meltzer) found that Mr Sykes died of multiple injuries, followed by incineration.

Mr Grau, of Brooklyn, Wellington, said that on November 1, in company with Mr Sykes and two other members of the film unit, he flew to McMurdo Sound to compile a documentary film on the Antarctic.

A helicopter flight was organised for November 19 to fly Mr Sykes and the witness to the petrified forest and the labrinth areas near the Wright Valley. With them in the United States Navy Sikorsky helicopter were four crew members and two American scientists. Mr Sykes was towards the rear of the aircraft. The helicopter left Scott Base at 8.30 a.m. and had been in the air about threequarters of an hour when the witness heard a sound like a truck back-firing. “At the same time the tail of the helicopter swerved from right to left,” said Mr Grau. “Immediately, the engine stopped and the helicopter started to drop and continued to glide forwards.”

The witness said he had been told later that, at this point, the pilot had sent out May Day distress calls. “We hit the ground,” Mr Grau went on. “The helicopter hit the side of Mt McClennan, which is very steep, the machine hitting facing slightly downwards. It bounced and struck again further down the hill, and then again, this time sliding to a stop.” Mr Grau said he thought that the engine caught fire about two or three seconds after the back-firing sound. The helicopter was burning when it struck the ground, the hatch door flew open and a mechanic was thrown out. The machine came to rest upright. “I attempted to push somebody through the hatch with my foot,” Mr Grau said. “I had to unclip my safety belt with my right hand, and then I jumped forward through the hatch. I suffered a badly burned face and left band while doing this. “I think I was the last sur-

vivor to get out of the machine." Mr Grau said he remembered that a section of the helicopter was burning when he jumped out, but he did know whether the fire had by then spread to the tail. “After I fell into the snow 1 felt somebody pick me up and pull me away,” the witness went on. “I was told later that Mr Sykes and one of the Americans had not made it” Mr Grau said it was his opinion that Mr Sykes could have been hit by “some objects, or some part of the helicopter disintegrating, or was thrown about after the machine hit the ground.” A pathologist, Dr W. S. Alexander, said that Mr Sykes died of multiple injuries followed by severe burning and incineration. It was not possible to say that Mr Sykes had died before being burned.