{"id":950397,"date":"2026-11-02T23:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T23:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950397\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T23:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T23:32:18","slug":"outback-chopper-firm-fortescue-helicopters-grounded-over-safety-breaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950397\/","title":{"rendered":"Outback chopper firm Fortescue Helicopters grounded over safety breaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

An outback Australian helicopter company has had its fleet grounded and its air operator’s certificate suspended immediately over a “serious and imminent risk to safety”.<\/p>\n

Sky High Helicopters Pty Ltd, which trades as Fortescue Helicopters in Western Australia and Queensland, has been grounded by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).<\/p>\n

In its findings published yesterday, CASA said the company had been operating with “a deliberately and systemically non-compliant safety culture”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Fortescue Helicopters operates in Western Australia and Queensland. (Supplied: Fortescue Helicopters)<\/p>\n

Corporate documents show the chopper company was first registered in 2008, offering aerial mustering, charter flights and mining support from the Pilbara mining town of Newman.<\/p>\n

It also has other bases in Perth, Broome and Far North Queensland.<\/p>\n

Owned by WA cattle producer and pilot Weldon Percy, Fortescue Helicopters lists among its clients mining giants Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), Rio Tinto, Glencore and Hancock Prospecting.<\/p>\n

“Safety, for our pilots and clients is our number one priority,” the company’s website states.<\/p>\n

“We believe safety is a company culture, not just a practice.”<\/p>\n

Fortescue Helicopters is not affiliated with the similarly named FMG, although it lists the company founded by billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest as “an important client of ours”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

It is not yet clear how long Fortescue Helicopters’ suspension will last. (Supplied: Fortescue Helicopters)<\/p>\n

CASA said in its findings the company had committed a series of serious and systemic intentional safety breaches, including that its pilots had been “directed not to accurately record the total time in service for aircraft operated by the company”.<\/p>\n

Other breaches detected by CASA included pilots being “directed not to record maintenance defects on aircraft maintenance releases” and operating “aircraft with outstanding maintenance requirements”.<\/p>\n

It also said personnel at the company were being ordered to perform unauthorised maintenance activities and had failed to comply with the company’s operations manual.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

CASA has previously pledged to crack down on safety compliance in the northern Australian chopper industry. (ABC News: Michael Parfitt)<\/p>\n

CASA also said “pilots’ flight and duty time limits are regularly and deliberately exceeded” by the company.<\/p>\n

Mr Percy hung up when the ABC contacted him for comment.<\/p>\n

Fortescue Helicopters was also separately contacted but has not responded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is unclear how long the suspension will be in place.<\/p>\n

Suspension follows safety crackdown pledge<\/p>\n

The grounding of Sky High Helicopters comes a year after CASA’s chief executive Pip Spence warned the watchdog would crack down on helicopter pilots who tried to “game the system” over safety regulations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wright trial exposes cowboy chopper culture<\/a><\/p>\n

The trial of celebrity crocodile wrangler Matt Wright unearthed a culture of helicopter maintenance and safety breaches by his company, which some say have been ongoing in Australia’s north for decades.<\/p>\n

She made the comments in the aftermath of the month-long trial of celebrity crocodile wrangler and chopper pilot Matt Wright in the Northern Territory Supreme Court last year, in which he was sentenced to prison for five months.<\/p>\n

Wright’s trial for attempting to pervert the course of justice heard accounts of frequent under-reporting of helicopter flying hours within the northern Australian aviation sector, with pilots regularly disconnecting the devices used to record their hours.<\/p>\n

Separate to his criminal trial, Wright’s company, Helibrook, was grounded in late 2024 over numerous breaches<\/a>, including failing to record accurate flight times, reckless operation of aircraft, and the falsification of maintenance records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An outback Australian helicopter company has had its fleet grounded and its air operator’s certificate suspended immediately over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,276408,59693,286846,517292,517290,34408,517291,85],"class_list":["post-950397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-aviation-safety","tag-casa","tag-civil-aviation-safety-authority","tag-fortescue-helicopters","tag-helicopter-safety","tag-matt-wright","tag-sky-high-helicopters","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950397","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=950397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}