Health News at Your Fingertips

An extreme weather system is hovering across the central Kimberley, between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek, brining with it major flooding and heavy rain.

Ex-tropical cyclone Ellie is expected to move slowly westward over the next 24-48 hours, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting it to be centred just east of Broome by Wednesday.

They have issued almost a dozen severe weather warnings across the Northern Territory and Western Australia over the past couple of days as the rain and damaging winds slams into the region.

In the NT, the vigorous monsoon flow remains over the Timor Sea, with Intermittent monsoonal squalls bring the risk of damaging wind gusts to the western Top End.

A major flood warning is in place for Fitzroy river, with flooding now higher than the 2002 record, and rising.

Since the start of the weekend widespread rainfall totals of 200-500 mm have been recorded across the Kimberley Region. Further widespread heavy falls are forecast for the next few days.

Queensland police release more details on crash victims

I just wanted to return to the fatal helicopter crash on the Gold Coast, because Queensland police have released a statement with further details.

Police say that the helicopter that crashed had seven occupants, including the 40-year-old pilot. The pilot died at the scene alongside three passengers, including a 57-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man from the UK, and a 36-year-old woman from Glenmore Park in New South Wales.

A 10-year-old boy also from Glenmore Park sustained critical injuries and was transported to the Gold Coast University hospital where he remains in a critical condition.

Two people from this aircraft, including a 33-year-old woman and a 9-year-old boy both from Geelong West in Victoria were transported to hospital with serious injuries. She remains in a critical but stable condition and the boy’s condition remains stable.

The chopper that landed had six occupants, including a 52-year-old pilot, a 27-year-old Western Australia woman and two families from New Zealand who were travelling together, a 44-year-old man and 43-year-old woman from one family and a 48-year-old man and 45-year-old woman from the other.

One occupant from this aircraft was uninjured, with the remaining five people sustaining minor physical injuries. They were transported to the Gold Coast University hospital.

Police are appealing for witnesses, particularly those with video of the incident.

Paul Karp

Universities Australia boss hopes China travel rules a ‘short-lived’ measure

Universities Australia chief executive, Catriona Jackson, has addressed the fact the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, advised against imposing extra conditions on travel from China.

Jackson told ABC News Breakfast:

I’ve read those reports … and I’ll be interested to see what Mark Butler, the health minister, has got to say about how he reached his position. But look, our position remains the same. It’s incredibly important that we do everything we can to regain the position of strength we had with international education pre-Covid.

But Jackson didn’t criticise – acknowledging it was a “decision for government”.

She said:

Look, that’s a decision for government, not for me and not for the university sector. However, we’ll be watching very carefully what Mark Butler says about how he reached that position. I’d like to hear directly from Paul Kelly rather than reading newspaper reports about what he apparently said. We have a deep investment, as universities should, in expert advice, but it’s a matter for government how they reached their decisions. What’s really important here is this is not an impediment to Chinese students returning to Australia. It just means they need to have a test before they get on that airplane. We said when this was announced on New Year’s Day that we hope this is a short-lived, temporary measure. I seem to recall the health minister had that same hope.

So with that the press conference comes to an end. We learned a couple more details, including that one helicopter was taking off and another landing.

We also learned that the rotor of the helicopter that was taking off hit the cabin of the chopper coming in to land.

Four people are confirmed dead: the pilot and three passengers including two British nationals. They are aged 37 to 65. The injured from that helicopter are still in critical condition, and include a mother aged 33 and two boys aged 10 and nine.

Britons killed in helicopter crash were husband and wife, police say

Campbell has continued, saying the two British nationals were a husband and wife, and that another of the victims was from NSW. The critically injured come from NSW and Victoria as well.

Next up, Queensland police acting inspector Mike Campbell has stepped up, saying the injuries to survivors from the landed helicopter are “nothing threatening” but the three from the other helicopter are “critically injured”:

One helicopter had a pilot and five passengers. That particular helicopter, all of those persons survived the incident. The pilot and one of the passengers, they’re still receiving some treatment at the hospital. But nothing threatening.

For the helicopter that the other helicopter, there were seven persons on board. Six passengers. One pilot. The pilot is deceased and there are three other deceased persons. They’re all adults. The three other critically injured. They’re currently in hospital still receiving treatment. Two juveniles and one adult. I believe that one is a mother and son and one other juvenile.

And the critically injured, we’ve got a 10-year-old, nine-year-old and a 33-year-old mother. Deceased, we’ve got 36, 40, 57 and 65.

Rotor blade of taking off helicopter hit windscreen of descending one, ATSB chief says

Mitchell says a key point of the investigation will be what occurred inside the aircrafts at the time of the collision, and that while the sequence of events is still unclear, authorities know that the main rotor blade of the helicopter taking off collided with the front cockpit of the descending helicopter:

From the footage that we’ve seen and from the damage that we can witness on there, it does appear that the main rotar blade of the helicopter blade taking off has collided with the front cockpit of the descending helicopter on the left-hand side.

Now, exactly whether that was the very first point of impact – we’re yet to determine. But that in itself has led to the main rotor in the gearbox separating from the main helicopter which then had no lift and has fallen heavily to the ground. It has been on a sand bar.

Exactly whether it’s hit the water or exactly what depth it was, I guess, is what we’ll determine based on the time of day that it occurred and exactly where on the sand bar. But we do know that the second helicopter has landed on the sand bar and that has obviously led to a stage where we aren’t seeing more fatalities here than what we could have.

Helicopter lost rotor blade and crashed in ‘uncontrolled fall’, ATSB chief says

Mitchell has given some more details, saying the helicopter that was taking off was airborne for less than 20 seconds, but added that its exact altitude was not yet known:

So, the exact altitude is something that we’re yet to determine. We do know that the helicopter taking off had been airborne for less than 20 seconds on its ascent.

Now, the forces involved in coming down, not only in the actual collision, are substantial, but obviously in the uncontrolled fall, which essentially is what it is once it’s lost its main rotor to get a better appreciation.

Helicopter crash investigators looking for contributing factors

Mitchell says there is no clear cause of the crash so far, with a range of lines of inquiry being considered:

We have a reasonable understanding of what the two helicopters were doing, as I said, in the critical phases of flight.

But exactly why this occurred, the range of visibility from both the pilots, what was happening inside the cabins the time – they’re the things that will help us piece together potentially what may have been a contributing factor here. But it’s still very early stage in the investigation to start speculating.

What we will have a look at now is: what were the processes and procedures in place operating out of Sea World. Were they all followed? Were they sufficient? And again, very early days but what we’re keen to know is what the two helicopters were doing at the time. What were the processes in place at to protect helicopters, in those phases of flight. Once we’ve got that, then we’ll have a better process.

Salvaging helicopters on Gold Coast a challenge because of sand bank

Mitchell said the salvage job is ongoing, saying it has been “challenging” because it is on the sand bank, and that heavy machinery is required:

At the moment, both the helicopters are being salvaged off the sand bank and that’s under way at the moment. That has been challenging. One, because it is a sand bank, to get out the heavy machinery required. But also because of the tides.

Once we get them ashore and we start to go through the actual wreckage, we’ll get a better appreciation. But that can be, as I just mentioned, the forces involved in a crash like this are considerable. There’s considerable disruption to both air frames, and that will take us some time to get a better appreciation.

The ATSB chief Angus Mitchell has confirmed the helicopters were on a tourist flight, adding that it was “remarkable” that one of the damaged helicopters was able to land:

It’s a tourist flight that does offer a tourist experience. So we will get what we can from the crash site. But equally, if there’s anything that happened to be on any of the passengers on board, and that’s sometimes where we get some of the best information as well.

When any aircraft accident happens, there are enormous forces at play, and particularly helicopter collisions. So the presence of mind to be able to land that helicopter, particularly considering the damage that we know has occurred on that front left-hand seat of the helicopter, it does appear have been a remarkable job to have got it down.

We’ll have a better idea of exactly what was disrupted in that helicopter. What parts of the flight mechanisms were disrupted. But I would say at this stage, that we are very fortunate that we’re not standing here with far more deaths. Notwithstanding the fact that there’s four fatalities is a very tragic outcome.

ATSB chief says thoughts with families of helicopter crash victims, as well as witnesses

The ATSB chief Mitchell says that while the tide did come up overnight, officials were able to get the perishable evidence off the site, with both helicopters removed from the sand:

At this stage, the helicopters have both been removed off the sand bar. They’ll be taken ashore where my investigators will get a better appreciation of exactly what’s occurred and the forces that were in play. But what I would like to say is that our thoughts do go out to all those who have been affected here.

Not only those the helicopter and their extended family, but equally to all of those on the Broadwater yesterday who have witnessed very confronting scenes of the helicopters coming down.

And particularly to those members of the public that were the first responders that were on scene, and then obviously to the police and emergency services and ambulance who had to deal with that sight and do their best in very trying circumstances. As I said, they’ve both been on a sand bar.

The tide has come up overnight. Whilst we did get a lot of that perishable evidence off the site last night and the stuff that we really do rely on, a lot of that electronic recording equipment, we now have a painstaking job of trying to recreate exactly what’s occurred in the lead-up to this tragic start to the new year.

Authorities are providing an update on the helicopter collision in Queensland, with the chief commissioner of the Australia Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Angus Mitchell, beginning by outlining the focus of investigators:

Whilst it has been tragic that four people have lost their lives and many families are mourning this morning, we could have had a far worse situation here, and the fact that one helicopter has managed to land has been quite remarkable.

The process now for the ATSB is to gather all the intelligence and all the evidence we can. We’ve certainly, we’d like to thank those of the community that were witnesses to the event who have come forward. Those that have camera footage, CCTV off buildings. That will be very important for us to try to put together what has occurred here. And particularly, those final phases of flight.

We know the take-off and the landing phases of any aircraft operations are critical phases of flight where the cognitive workload of pilots are at their greatest. What we do need to know now is what was occurring inside the two cockpits at the time. We do have multiple accounts from witnesses and a video.

But equally, we’ll get what we can from the two helicopters to try to get a better picture of what was occurring. But equally, what were the processes in place that are designed to actually protect helicopters in this situation? We know that it’s a busy time of the year. We know helicopters are in and out of that Sea World helipad constantly throughout the day.

So we’ll anticipate certainly be looking at multiple lines of inquiry here around the procedures that were in place, and potentially what has helped contribute to such a tragic outcome that we’re standing here today.

A man has died and another has suffered head injuries after an apparent shooting incident in Hobart’s northern suburbs.

Police were called to an address in Granton around 1.30am on Tuesday after receiving a report of a gunshot.

“Upon attendance police have located the body of a deceased male outside the residence and another male was located inside with head injuries,” Tasmania police said in a statement.

The second man has been taken to the Royal Hobart hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

A police investigation is underway and a section of a street in Granton has been cordoned off.