Lyon and Nugent were both wearing TopOwl helmets that Wilson had concluded in 2020 were an “unacceptable risk to flight safety”.
Their Taipan, call sign Bushman 83, had been flying low in formation with three other helicopters in poor weather and with no visible horizon – precisely the conditions Wilson warned would expose airmen to lethal risk, including “controlled flight into terrain”.
“My report warned that if this system were relied on in precisely these conditions, it would result in exactly the type of crash we’re experiencing. This was the nightmare I envisaged,” he said.
An image for the TopOwl helmet system.Credit: YouTube
In 2019, Wilson was asked to test updated software in the TopOwl helmet known as 5.10.
One of Australia’s most experienced and qualified test pilots, with more than 8500 flying hours, he quickly deemed the helmet not airworthy after he discovered a serious fault in the symbols projected onto the visor when the pilot looked left or right.
“It was displaying pitch as bank. So, it’s totally incorrect,” Wilson said. “If I looked to the side, pitch up became bank.”
MRH-90 Taipan helicopters prepare to land at Townsville.Credit: ADF via AP
He also found the helmet’s night vision to be deficient, with 50 per cent less visibility compared with other systems.
In 2020, Wilson and his colleagues in the Army Aviation Test and Evaluation Section wrote an official report advising Defence not to proceed with the upgrade.
But with Defence having spent many millions of dollars on the rollout, Wilson says the top brass was determined to push version 5.10 into the field and approved it after ordering another department to retest it but in less hazardous conditions.
“I think it’s outright deception. They constrained themselves to good conditions. Yes, it was at night, but it was in good conditions where they avoided the risk.”
It’s a risk the families of the four airmen say is symptomatic of a deeper cultural malaise within Defence – one that consistently puts “box-ticking” over the safety of people.
Families speak out
The families of the four men have sat through hours of evidence during the official inquiry into the crash about the events leading up to and on the night of the disaster.
They have reached their own conclusions as to who is responsible and they have united to speak publicly to get justice for the deaths of their loved ones and to ensure it never happens again.
Caitland Lyon, widow of Danniel Lyon, who was piloting the doomed aircraft, says Defence failed to protect the men.
Caitland Lyon pins Dann Lyons’ medals onto son Noah.Credit: 60 Minutes
“They took them from us because they were so busy climbing promotions and checking their own boxes that they forgot that there’s real people. There were real people in those aircrafts,” Lyon said.
She also shudders to recall a conversation her husband had with colleagues about the TopOwl helmet long before the crash.
“He came home and told me that he had flown for the first time using his TopOwl helmet and he said that they went to take off. And he said to his captain, ‘Oh, stop. My TopOwl’s bugging out’.”
She said his captain laughed and said, ‘That’s OK. You’ll get used to it’. “And Dan was very confused by this. It was supposed to be this amazing piece of equipment, yet he couldn’t see out of it.”
Dan and Marianna Nugent, parents of co-pilot Max Nugent, say their son raised similar concerns about the night vision capabilities of the helmet.
“It’s just not as clear, it’s not as good as the normal night vision or traditional night vision that he much preferred,” Dan Nugent said. “That’s his exact words, ‘I much preferred using the traditional night vision ANVIS-9’.”
Marianna and Dan Nugent.Credit: 60 Minutes
After Wilson and colleagues in the test section concluded the TopOwl upgrade amounted to a “substantial risk of multiple deaths”, Defence cleared the helmet for use following a so-called “operation evaluation”.
But as a precaution, Defence instructed pilots to rely on key symbols in the helmet only when they looked straight ahead.
Dan Nugent is scathing about the decision to put TopOwl into the field, given the warnings.
“From my perspective, it looks like they tried to circumvent the system. They just went around it,” he says.
Caitland Lyon says Defence’s work-around disgusts her.
“It’s sickening in a way that I can’t describe. It’d be like trying to drive a car and not look left or right. To give him a piece of equipment that trains them to not look – it’s just negligence,” she said.
Dianne Laycock and husband Wayne said hearing Wilson’s evidence at the inquiry was when their frustration set in.
Shocked and frustrated: Dianne Laycock. Credit: 60 Minutes
“We were shocked that the test pilots would put out a report saying, ‘There’s a problem with this software, that it could lead to a controlled flight into terrain and someone could die’, but the army still went ahead with that software upgrade,” Dianne said.
Sarah Loft, Nagg’s fiancee, said she found Wilson “compelling” and it exposed a “toxic” culture within Defence.
“I could have accepted if they’d died at war. I could have accepted if he was shot down over Afghanistan.” she said. “I can’t accept negligence. Because what we saw through those hearings was high level people pointing the finger at each other and no one taking responsibility or accountability for their decisions.”
Comcare, the Commonwealth’s work safety organisation, conducted its own investigation into the crash and recommended Defence face criminal prosecution for rolling out TopOwl 5.10 and for its fatigue management.
Sarah Loft with Alex Naggs.Credit:
Defence’s experts testified before the inquiry that the men were so chronically fatigued at the time of the crash it was the equivalent of them having a low to medium blood alcohol reading.
In July, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions decided against taking action against Defence.
Caitland Lyon said this was another blow for the families. “We were devastated. Again, it’s Defence checking Defence. It’s the Commonwealth checking the Commonwealth. Of course, they’re not gonna prosecute themselves,” she said.
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Wilson says TopOwl’s deficiencies came into play twice that tragic night, and he used official data to reconstruct the final 21 seconds to show how the helmet had directly contributed to the spatial disorientation experienced by the pilots.
The bureau’s report said Bushman 83 made an inadvertent climb at 10.36pm, but Wilson says Defence failed to consider how TopOwl was performing and the pilot’s need to align his aircraft with the two helicopters in front of him.
“In these conditions, he can’t see the detail on the aircraft in front of him. All he can see is blobs floating in space,” Wilson says.
With no visible horizon and Bushman 82 flying slightly high, Wilson says Lyon did what any experienced pilot would do: he tried to realign his aircraft, but in doing so, he pointed his nose down, which caused the helicopter to gain speed.
Whereas the bureau said the pilots were likely to have been looking “through” the symbology projected on to the TopOwl visor to maintain focus on the Taipan in front, flight data shows the doomed Taipan had flown over the helicopter flying ahead, Bushman 82.
Wilson says that it was at this point that Lyon was exposed to TopOwl’s deficiencies for the second time – its inversion of pitch and roll in the visor when the pilot looks off-axis.
When Lyon lost sight of Bushman 82 beneath him, he quickly dipped his chopper to regain sight of it.
Which is when Lyon would have been forced to look off-axis.
“He knows 82 is underneath him, perilously close,” Wilson said. “They’re at risk of a collision, so he has to gain visual with him. He would’ve quickly looked his head to the side to try and find 82.”
Wilson said when Lyon looked back to the front, the helmet’s symbology would have told him the aircraft was rapidly pitching up, when it was flying level.
“He was in trouble,” he said. “He would’ve felt disoriented, like experiencing vertigo – head spins, dizziness. Realising he was in trouble, he would now look to the front. He knows that he’s been told to trust his instruments.
“In this disoriented state, he starts looking forward with his head coming up. His inner ear is gonna tell him that his body is pitching up, but he won’t know whether that’s his body or the aircraft itself.
“The only sensible thing for him to do at that point in time was to jam the stick against the dash and stop it from pitching up.”
It took just six seconds for Bushman 83 to descend from the top of its climb to hit the sea.
“Pushing the stick forward, pitched the aircraft down into a dive that was essentially unrecoverable at that altitude,” Wilson said.
The commanding officer in Bushman 84 was heard saying, “Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!” but it was too late.
Families of the airmen on Bushman 83 said very little was recovered of their loved ones: a few pieces of flesh, some bones and a foot.
Wreckage of the Taipan helicopter, with the call sign Bushman 83, which crashed in July 2023, killing the four men on board.Credit: 60 Minutes
Nothing of Nugent was found, except for his wallet, his dog tags and a broken Garmin watch.
“This is his 24 years in three items,” his heartbroken mother, Marianna Nugent, said while holding back tears.
There is no plaque or public memorial for the four lost men.
But North Bondi RSL has stepped up, putting their photos over the bar and offering the families the support they say Defence has failed to provide.
Diesel, Max, Phil and Naggsy, as they were known to their mates, now look to the sea where their young lives were extinguished.
Brought together through tragedy, the men’s families’ last hope for accountability now rests with the Defence inquiry and the finding of its chair, former judge Margaret McMurdo.
Her report is expected to be handed down in the new year.
They’re optimistic she will find Defence is at fault for the deaths of their loved ones.
Sarah Loft says that’s the least they expect.
“Because somebody should be able to look us in the eye and tell us why our men are on this wall and not with us,” she said. “We have not received that and it’s not fair. It’s not right. Those men deserved better.”