’Copter pilot had imbibed

Press, 23 November 1983, Page 8

’Copter pilot had imbibed

PA Wellington The pilot of a helicopter which crashed near Taupo earlier this year, killing himself and his woman passenger, bad a blood-alcohol level high enough to impair his decision-making ability, said the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Mr Ron Chippindale, in a report given yesterday. Joseph Charles Keeley, aged 35, the pilot, passenger, Rosalie Wewr-

man, aged 22, died when the Hughes helicopter they were in crashed after taking off from the lawn of a house just east of Taupo on April 17. Witnesses said the helicopter climbed steeply to about 100 ft, then fell in a right-hand arc, crashing on to a tennis court at the front of the house, the report said. The dead couple had been at a social gathering, and

Mr Keeley was found to have a blood-alcohol level of 232 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. This would have been enough to impair his decision-making ability and was a significant factor in the circumstances leading to the accident, Mr Chippindale said. There was no evidence of mechanical failure of the aircraft. The probable cause of the accidenl/was the pilot’s los-

ing control of the helicopter because of “a lack of external visual reference,” the report said. The pilot was taking off at night from a brightly lit lawn and the shift from light to darkness would have happened very suddenly. Mr Keeley would have had no natural horizon reference, and he probably would have had no useful vision ahead of him, '-Mr Chippindale said. W