The defence minister, Richard Marles, says authorities have lost hope of finding alive the four missing crew members of an Australian defence force helicopter involved in a “catastrophic” crash during a training exercise on Friday night.
Marles promised a thorough investigation into the incident, while the chief of the ADF, Gen Angus Campbell, promised that the recovery operation would seek to recover the bodies.
“We are going to do everything possible to bring our mates home to their families,” Campbell told reporters at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday.
The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crashed during a military training exercise in waters off Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands, prompting the grounding of the fleet and a search and rescue operation.
But Marles said on Monday that those efforts had shifted to a search and recovery operation. The announcement came a day after the missing servicemen were named, with the permission of their families, as Capt Daniel Lyon, Lt Maxwell Nugent, WO Class Two Joseph Laycock and Cpl Alexander Naggs.
“Since the accident of the MRH-90 helicopter on Friday night the activities that have been occurring in the Whitsundays have now revealed significant wreckage from the helicopter,” Marles said.
“What this evidences is that there was a catastrophic incident, and with every passing hour, it is now clear that any hope of finding Capt Lyon, Lt Nugent, WO Laycock and Cpl Naggs alive has been lost.”
Marles said the families of the four air crew had been notified on Monday, and he had “spoken with each of them in the last hour”. He said he wanted to assure the families that a “determined recovery effort involving hundreds of defence force personnel will continue”.
He said multinational training exercises known as Talisman Sabre played a critical part in providing for the collective security and peace of the region “and so the loss of these four men is as significant and meaningful as the loss of anyone who has won our nation’s uniform”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, opened parliamentary question time on Monday by offering condolences “to the families, friends and colleagues of those who Australia has lost”.
He thanked Canada and the United States for joining the ADF in the search effort, along with the Queensland police service and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
“This will be a very hard time for many serving members and their families as well as veterans and I encourage anyone who feels in need of support to seek help,” Albanese said.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, backed the prime minister, saying it was “important that the country hears a very unified message from the government from the opposition on dark days for our country”.
In December 2021, Dutton, then defence minister, announced plans to buy up to 40 Black Hawks from the US and to bring forward the retirement of the MRH-90 helicopters, although no contracts were signed by the time of the change of government.
In January 2023, the Labor government confirmed that it would buy the Black Hawks from the US at a likely cost of about $3bn. As a result, Defence intended to cease Taipan flying operations by the end of 2024 – 13 years earlier than original expectations.
On Monday, Marles said the MRH-90 Taipan fleet would remain grounded as long as necessary, amid speculation from some experts that the helicopters would not resume service before next year’s changeover.
“The investigation is going to be thorough; we need to understand what occurred. If there are steps that need to be taken, we need to take the steps, and until all that has happened, the MRH-90s will not fly.”
Marles said grounding the fleet “does impact capability”. He said he did not want to raise expectations of Australia acquiring Black Hawks sooner than expected.
Campbell declined to say whether an explosion may have occurred on the aircraft, but Marles said parts of the wreckage retrieved to date indicated that “there was a catastrophic impact of the helicopter when it hit the water”.
Campbell said the search was difficult because it was “in an area of the waters around the Whitsunday Islands where there are quite strong currents and tidal movements and with waters that move below the depths of a standard diving operation”.
“This means that we have had to use sonar equipment to identify pieces of the wreckage, but we’ll also have to use divers and some specialist divers to support this activity,” Campbell said.
“A portion of the airframe has been recovered but there is the greater majority not yet recovered and I’m not sure how long it will take.”
Earlier, the government said unspecified steps had been taken to “mitigate” risks after an incident near Jervis Bay in March.
In that case, an MRH-90 was forced to ditch after losing power in the main rotor, but the 10 crew members survived.
The defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, told ABC Radio National: “Flights resumed in April after extensive risk analysis and implementation of risk mitigation controls occurred.
“It’s really important to restate what the chief of army said yesterday that the army doesn’t take unnecessary risks. The army mitigated those risks and declared the helicopter safe to fly.”
