Cockpit video has emerged of the final seconds before two helicopters collided on the Gold Coast, leaving four people dead and two boys critically injured.
The footage shows a passenger sitting behind surviving pilot Michael James and tapping him on the shoulder moments before the mid-air collision.
Seconds after the passenger attempts to get the pilot’s attention, the video shows the helicopter’s interior being struck by flying glass as the first aircraft’s main rotor strikes the cockpit.
The pilot and all five passengers in the second helicopter survived, with all but one suffering shrapnel injuries.
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The clip, which aired on the Seven Network on Wednesday night, was being handed to authorities to form part of the investigation into Monday’s fatal double-helicopter crash.
Four people were killed – British-born pilot Ashley Jenkinson, 40, Sydney woman Vanessa Tadros and British couple Ron and Diane Hughes, 65 and 57.
Vanessa’s son Nicholas Tadros, 10, remains in intensive care.
Another boy, Leon de Silva, 9, from Geelong West, is also in intensive care while his mother Winnie De Silva, 33, was seriously injured.
The Australian Coptic Movement Association for the North African Christian community said it had reached out to the Tadros family to see if it could offer assistance and asked its members to join in prayer for Nicholas.
The Lara Giants Basketball Club, based just outside Geelong, said one of its members had been deeply affected by the crash and called on supporters to donate to an online fundraiser for Leon, as did the Kenya Community Victoria group.
On Wednesday, Vanessa’s husband Simon informed the customers of his wife’s wedding decoration company that she had died.
“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have to inform everyone of the passing of my beautiful wife … While my son is fighting for life in the ICU,” Mr Tadros stated.
Winnie’s husband Neil De Silva told Nine News that it had been a “pretty tough” time for the family and her condition was improving.
“They operated on her major leg break [on Tuesday] and finally washed the aviation fuel off her so she was able to talk and feeling better this morning but our major concern is Leon – when they wake him up [on Wednesday] – that he is OK,” Mr de Silva said.
-AAP
