{"id":663917,"date":"2026-05-11T13:30:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663917\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:30:31","slug":"new-trial-ordered-for-qld-pilot-leslie-woodall-over-crash-that-killed-tourist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/663917\/","title":{"rendered":"New trial ordered for Qld pilot Leslie Woodall over crash that killed tourist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conviction of a pilot found guilty of dangerously flying a small plane that crashed and killed a British tourist almost a decade ago has been set aside on appeal.<\/p>\n

Leslie Ronald Woodall, 73, had been convicted on charges of dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death, and grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n

Mr Woodall had been flying three tourists from Agnes Water to Middle Island in January 2017, when the plane’s engine failed.<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

Leslie Woodall was flying three tourists from Agnes Water to Middle Island in January 2017 when the plane’s engine failed. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

He turned the plane to the left, attempting to reach a creek’s sandbank, but the aircraft quickly lost altitude and crashed on a remote beach.<\/p>\n

British tourist Jocelyn Sara Spurway, 29, was killed and Hannah Maeve O’Dowd, 21, was seriously injured.<\/p>\n

Mr Woodall was found guilty in the District Court in Brisbane in December 2024 and was sentenced to two years in jail, wholly suspended.<\/p>\n

Successful appeal<\/p>\n

During that trial, the Crown argued Mr Woodall lost control of the aircraft when he turned left, which was against his training and “the opposite of the safest option”.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

All four people on the plane were injured in the crash.\u00a0 (Supplied: LifeFlight)<\/p>\n

Mr Woodall said at the time he believed his “only option” was to try to reach the sandbank of Jenny Lind Creek, but he had to make “a late correction” to avoid flying into a large sand dune.<\/p>\n

The Queensland Court of Appeal found the Crown did not prove that flying into the sand dune was safer than what Mr Woodall did.<\/p>\n

In the decision published on Friday, the court also found the Crown did not properly address whether Mr Woodall had criminal responsibility even during “an extraordinary emergency”.<\/p>\n

\"Twisted<\/p>\n

Leslie Woodall says his life remains in limbo after the appeal decision. (Supplied: Air Transport Safety Bureau)<\/p>\n

“The respondent [the Crown] conceded there were errors in the conduct of the trial,” the judgement found.<\/p>\n

A new trial has now been ordered.<\/p>\n

Mr Woodall said his life was in limbo after the appeal decision, which was made after a hearing in March.<\/p>\n

“I’m back on bail again, where I still can’t do anything as far as travelling or anything like that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a long road that I’ve been going through and a very expensive one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conviction of a pilot found guilty of dangerously flying a small plane that crashed and killed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25352,64,63,3148,99,14004,42523,320742,320743,269432,57805,6771],"class_list":["post-663917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-agnes-water","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-aviation","tag-business","tag-conviction","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-fatal-plane-crash","tag-leslie-woodall","tag-middle-island","tag-plane-crash","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}