Vision Logo Circle
Vision Logo Circle

Victims Of Gold Coast Helicopter Tragedy

by | Tue, Jan 3 2023

Text size: A- A+

A newlywed British couple are among four people who died after the mid-air collision of two Sea World helicopters right beside the Gold Coast theme park on Monday afternoon.

Ron and Diane Hughes aged 65 and 57 were from Liverpool in the UK.

36-year-old mother Vanessa Tadros also known as Vanessa Geagea from Glenmore Park in Sydney was another victim along with Sea World Helicopters Chief Pilot Ashley Jenkinson aged 40.

10-year-old Nicholas Tadros is in a Brisbane hospital with critical injuries.

Winnie De Silva, 35, from Geelong and her nine-year-old son Leon survived with critical injuries.

All were on the same aircraft.

Incredibly, all on board the second helicopter survived with non-life threatening glass shrapnel injuries after the pilot managed to land safely on a sandbar despite the cockpit windscreen being smashed in by the other aircraft’s rotor blade.

The passengers were two New Zealand couples in their 40s and a 27-year-old woman from Western Australia.

Sea World Helicopters (SWH) which operated both aircraft and Village Roadshow Theme Parks which owns Sea World offered condolences to the victims, their families, and guests and staff at Sea World who witnessed the crash.

The theme park was open on Tuesday, but SWH has suspended operations while co-operating with authorities to find out what happened.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is probing the crash, particularly what was happening inside the two cockpits at the point of impact.

It has salvaged both helicopters from the sandbar.