Mood:
blueTopic: big media
The rumour along the Oodnadatta Track near Coober Pedy, and William Creek is that an official investigation report is now in for the fatal helicopter crash of Gary Ticehurst, Paul Lockyer, and John Bean.
The rumour, right or wrong, is that flying at night there is precious little orientation regarding elevation and sand dunes are deceptively high, claiming pilot error flying into a sand dune.
Whether this is the content of the report cannot be confirmed. The rumour is sourced to a roustabout with experience of gyrocopter flying over long distances but strictly at daytime, and another character who worked for a decade on the Ghan, and local home steads, as told to a grey nomad tourist from NSW, and passed onto this writer at the Coober Pedy Stuart Ranges caravan park.
We take a skeptical legal view. We note the experience of the helicopter pilot and the unconfirmed nature of the rumour as well as the predeliction at times for remote areas with an economic dependence on tourism to play down dangers and mishaps including via blame the victim type stories. Whether this is the case time will tell.
Certainly tourist flights to Lake Eyre are advertised in every road stop and town centre in the region with numerous small town airstrips at Marree, Hawker, Wilpena, William Creek and no doubt more.
In any case the above rumour is running.
Our photo album of our outback road tour is here Outback road trip South Australia tour via the ubiquitous facebook. One beautiful location is here called Blanches Cup which is a mound spring in the desert near Oodnadatta Track 100 km or so east of William Creek:
May they rest in peace.
