The owner of the helicopter company at the centre of an ill-fated flight that killed six tourists and a pilot in 2015 today pushed back against claims the company wasn't up to scratch at the time of the crash.
The wreckage of the helicopter on Fox Glacier. Photo: NZ Police
Six years after one of the country's worst helicopter crashes, a coroner's inquest into the tragedy began today in the Christchurch District Court.
All seven people aboard were killed when an Alpine Adventures AS350 Squirrel helicopter plunged into a glacier on a scenic trip over Westland Tai Poutini National Park.
Queenstown pilot Mitch Gameren, 28, Australians Sovannmony Leang, 27, and Josephine Gibson, 29, and British tourists Andrew Virco, 50, Katharine Walker, 51, Nigel Edwin Charlton, 66, and Cynthia Charlton, 70, were killed when the helicopter plunged into a deep crevasse.
Coroner Marcus Elliot offered his sincere condolences to the families of the dead - tuned into the proceedings via audio visual link from overseas - and said the victims would remain at the heart of the inquest.
Then James Scott, who owned and directed Alpine Adventures at the time of the crash, was called on to give evidence.
A 2019 Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) report highlighted a slew of failings, saying Gameren was inexperienced and hadn't been properly trained.
But Scott said that was not the case.
"With Mitch that first season, he did, I think, 180 flights to the Franz Josef glacier under the supervision of our senior pilots," he told the court.
"And at the time, I think he had 360 more hours in the squirrel [helicopter] with us operating, so he wasn't new.
"He'd just been overseas and had done a winter flying a rescue machine and came back to us.
"This wasn't an inexperienced guy. He had 1800 hours and a lot of that time was in our glacier region, with our conditions."
In 2019 Scott pleaded guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety in Employment Act legislation and was fined $64,000.
He agreed to the summary of facts at the time of his sentencing, but today, in front of family members of the victims, he pushed back on several claims, such as the helicopter being well above its permitted weight.
A Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) report released in 2019 said the helicopter's maximum permitted weight was "almost certainly exceeded".
Crown barrister Anne Toohey quoted TAIC's findings that the helicopter was 47kg overweight at the time of the accident - but 65kg overweight when it took off.
"I dispute that," Scott said today.
"And I'd like that evidence looked at some stage over the coming days."
Scott said he now had the weight figures for the six passengers and could prove the helicopter wasn't overweight.
"But at the time of your sentencing, this wasn't disputed was it?" Toohey asked.
"Well, I said that it wasn't right and I couldn't identify it at the time because I didn't have all the figures to be able to do it and I didn't have the weights of the people."
On the day of the November crash, rain and cloud forced the cancellation of some earlier flights.
The TAIC was critical of the fact that the pilot didn't have enough supervision from a senior pilot that day - they were on another flight.
Scott said he agreed the two did not speak before - but would not accept the pilot was not supervised during the flight.
The inquest is set down for the whole week, with family members of the victims expected to give evidence.
Coroner Elliot told the court the inquest aimed to find out whether further recommendations are necessary to prevent a similar accident in the future.