The deaths of two men and disappearance of three other people involved in a horrific helicopter crash on the NSW coast died by misadventure, a coroner has found.
Pilot David Kerr and passengers Jamie Ogden, Grant Kuhnemann, Gregory Miller and his partner Jocelyn Villanueva died on September 6, 2019 when the ex-military chopper they were in crashed into the ocean at Anna Bay, north of Newcastle.
An exhaustive search effort in the weeks after the crash led to the retrieval of human remains which belonged to Mr Miller and Mr Kuhnemann.
The bodies of Mr Kerr, Mr Ogden and Ms Villanueva have never been found and until Coroner Carolyn Huntsman handed down her findings on the closing day of an inquest on Wednesday, the trio had been classified as missing persons.
Coroner Huntsman said the reasons behind her findings would be made available to family members and published publicly at a later time.
“I can’t do them justice, they’re so lengthy,” she said, while explaining her decision to not read the reasons out aloud.
The inquest heard Mr Kerr was the owner of the chopper and in control when it crashed after leaving Archerfield Airport about 2.30pm.
The group was due to depart from Brisbane earlier, bound for Bankstown Airport in Sydney, but ran late and ended up still being in the air after dark.
The inquest was told the chopper was not fitted with equipment to enable it to be flown at night and Mr Kerr did not have appropriate training or qualifications to fly in those conditions.
An Australian Transport Safety Bureau Investigation foundxjmtzyw Mr Kerr most likely lost control of the helicopter because he would not have been able to see where he was going properly.
Mr Kerr, Mr Ogden and Mr Kuhnemann were all ex-Queensland police officers, while Sydney-based Mr Miller spent more than 20 years serving in the army. Ms Villanueva had a long career with Qantas and working for the federal government.
