Richard Cousins tragedy: Crash plane route was ‘inexplicable’
A seaplane that plunged into a bay near Sydney, killing five Britons including one who used to live in Shropshire, had diverted from its authorised route and was making a “totally inexplicable” turn, the aircraft’s operator said.
Pilot Gareth Morgan, who had more than 10,000 hours flying experience, is thought to have turned into steep-sided Jerusalem Bay after taking off from nearby Cottage Point, around 25 miles north of the city centre, on New Year’s Eve.
The Canadian pilot and his five passengers – British businessman Richard Cousins, the chief executive of a FTSE 100 catering giant, his two sons, his fiancee Emma Bowden and her 11-year-old daughter, all died when the aircraft took a sharp right-hand turn and nose-dived into the water.
Richard Cousins, 58-year-old chief executive of Compass Group, used to bat for Wellington Cricket Club’s second team when he lived in the town in the late 1980s and was also chairman of the club’s cricket committee for several years.
Investigators said Mr Morgan, 44, was “very familiar with the area” and would have known he would have been too low to clear the terrain when he entered the bay minutes after taking off at around 3pm.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it was now trying to piece together what happened in the cockpit, and one of its lines of inquiry would be if Mr Morgan was incapacitated. The seaplane did not have a cockpit voice or flight data recorder, although it was not required to have one by law.
There are hopes that electronic devices including mobiles phones recovered from scene that are being analysed by police may shed light on events on board prior to the crash.
Speaking as investigators released their preliminary report, Aaron Shaw, chief executive of operator Sydney Seaplanes, said the aircraft “simply should not have been where it was”.
“It is not a route we authorise in our landing and take-off area register and the plane simply should not have been where it was,” he said. “Further, the aircraft is then reported to have entered in to an 80 to 90-degree bank angle turn. It’s inexplicable.”
“A turn of this nature at low altitude by a pilot with Gareth’s skills, experience and intimate knowledge of the location is totally inexplicable.”
The bodies of Mr Cousins, his sons, Will and Edward, aged 25 and 23, Ms Bowden, 48, and her daughter were recovered from the water on the day of the tragedy.
Friends and colleagues said Mr Cousins was a “well-known and respected” businessman who helped transform Compass’s fortunes when he became the catering firm’s boss in 2006. He had kept in touch with friends at Wellington Cricket Club and often visited Shropshire.
