Inquiry into crash that killed Edward Haughey finds no helicopter defects

Air accident investigators have so far found no evidence of a technical malfunction which might account for the helicopter crash which killed Edward Haughey and three other people.

The Northern Ireland businessman – Lord Ballyedmond – the co-pilot Lee Hoyle, the captain Carl Dickerson and passenger Declan Small, were killed when the helicopter crashed just after taking off in dense fog from Mr Haughey’s home at Gillingham Hall in Norfolk on March 13th, a special bulletin from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.

The report said the craft had been scheduled to leave for Coventry airport at 6.30pm but the passengers “were not ready to depart until around 7.20pm”.

Video recording
From viewing a video recording of the departure, looking at evidence from the "black box" recorders and talking to witnesses, the AAIB team gave a detailed account of the fatal flight.

The helicopter had only reached 25 metres above ground and a ground speed of 90 knots, according to the final complete frame of analysed recorded data. It crashed nose-down in a field, with the distribution of the wreckage indicating that it had become airborne again before coming to rest upright 63m from the initial impact spot.

In the final few seconds Mr Hoyle had made two verbal prompts to Capt Dickerson regarding the aircraft’s pitch attitude. Recorded data showed that steps had been taken to rectify this.

The AAIB said both engines had been operating during impact, the rotor head and the tail rotor drive shaft were able to rotate freely and the drive shaft was rotating.