{"id":127562,"date":"2025-11-10T08:26:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T08:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/127562\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T08:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T08:26:03","slug":"helicopter-pilot-reveals-chaos-amid-whakaari-eruption-aftermath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/127562\/","title":{"rendered":"Helicopter pilot reveals chaos amid Whakaari eruption aftermath"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was accompanied by staff who flew other helicopters.<\/p>\n

He ensured they carried water, gas masks, helmets and fireproof clothing they typically used when assisting in firefighting.<\/p>\n

Once he arrived at the island and assessed the scene from the air, it was apparent a strong eruption had occurred and he noticed a damaged helicopter that had been blown off a helipad.<\/p>\n

He continued to circle before spotting what looked like people on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just right beside the column of ash and that\u2019s when I started to see a lot of people, once my eye tuned into looking for humans in the ash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI then realised very quickly that there was a whole bunch more [people] there. I didn\u2019t miss a beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just keep looking around and then straight away you\u2019re thinking, okay, these people, they need help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law said he did not see any movement from the bodies and he realised how challenging conditions were once landing on a helipad nearest to where he could see people.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I cracked the door open and started breathing the local environment, it was brutal. So at that stage, I chucked the mask on and proceeded on towards where the folks were.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarted walking through the ash towards where the people were, there was a lot of noise, hissing, roaring, coming from the volcano vent and obviously there was ash falling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law said it was difficult to see the extent of people\u2019s injuries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said the ash was like talcum powder and made it difficult to identify blood or wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a distance, burn injuries weren\u2019t as obvious because there\u2019s a thick layer of ash on people.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when we got close and right down, I could see, for example, people were missing eyebrows or had no skin left on their faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we started handling people to get them into the helicopters, it immediately became clear how serious the injuries were. Skin was separating from bodies as we lifted them up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people had full blisters down their entire limb that slipped off and or hung down when we lifted them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pilot said while he and staff were on Whakaari the volcano was constantly making noise and ashing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, it made a big enough noise that we were concerned it would erupt again and we were preparing to throw ourselves over the individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hell of a noise and so we both just dived down over people and then once it sort of passed and nothing happened, we looked at each other and you both could tell a bit of a sigh of relief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Law and his co-workers from Kahu NZ Helicopters moved through the island trying to identify the deceased and survivors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said they provided aid where they could by going person to person.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost had ash covering their faces, so I just tried to clear their mouths and noses so they could breathe. It was a very intense situation and a real mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome I could tell were clearly dead. Others I thought were in the early stages of dying. Others seemed to be in marginally better shape, but everyone was covered in ash and debris.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you give someone a really good old shake, get down and have a listen, because you\u2019re down there cleaning the ash out of their mouth and trying to free up their airways, you\u2019re looking for dust moving around their nostrils, their face, trying to feel their chest for rise, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law said he did have first aid experience because of his military background and had assessed people being deceased before the 2019 eruption.<\/p>\n

He said while doing his best to triage and provide aid to survivors he was surprised to hear emergency services wouldn\u2019t be coming.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe coronial inquest aims to re-establish the facts of the case and make recommendations to prevent similar disasters. Photo \/ George Novak<\/p>\n

The inquest has been told that all 39 people who were rescued from the island on the day of the eruption were transported away by civilian boats and helicopters.<\/p>\n

Law said tragically, there were instances when victims died while they were in the process of loading them into the aircraft or during the flight back to the mainland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my headset on, so things were a bit muffled by way of voice. I was looking around all the time at people and calling them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had an issue with the windscreen, it was caked in ash. So I couldn\u2019t really see out the front properly. I was just sort of flying through the little gap and then looking out the side of the aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe priority was just to keep talking and hopefully people responded to that voice going on in the helicopter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law will continue to give evidence at the inquiry on Tuesday, November 11.<\/p>\n

The coronial inquest in Auckland<\/a> aims to re-establish the facts of the case and make findings and recommendations to prevent similar disasters.<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was accompanied by staff who flew other helicopters. He ensured they carried water, gas masks, helmets and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57538,534,12413,50073,47065,111,43,139,69,19723,1517,43510,25535,50072],"class_list":["post-127562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-aftermath","tag-amid","tag-chaos","tag-eruption","tag-helicopter","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pilot","tag-reveals","tag-victor","tag-waters","tag-whakaari"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}