The Commonwealth government has been found guilty for failing health and safety requirements which ultimately led to the 2016 death of a helicopter pilot in Antarctica.
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Captain David Wood was 62 when he stepped out of his helicopter and fell into a crevasse while completing a mission on the icy continent.
He was trapped in the ice for four hours until a search and rescue team could retrieve him, but he died of hypothermia a day later.
Commonwealth prosecutors pursued criminal charges against the Australian Antarctic Division - a division of the federal Department of Environment - and it's contractor Helicopter Resources, Captain Wood's employer.
They faced three criminal charges each of failing to comply with work health and safety duties which exposed workers to serious injury or death.
Helicopter Resources was found not guilty of all three charges.
The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) was found guilty of two charges.
The three charges related to three separate flights, two conducted in December 2015 and one in January 2016.
Captain Wood, who was based at Davis Station, had been delivering barrels of fuel to fuel caches around the Antarctic territory when he fell into the crevasse.
ACT laws apply in the Australian Antarctic Territory, so the matter falls in the ACT court jurisdiction.
Acting Chief Magistrate Glenn Theakston recently handed down his decisions and found that there were measures the AAD could have reasonably taken to mitigate risks and therefore breached its duty.
The prosecution case was that a series of steps, that must be completed prior to pilots undertaking the flights, failed to be correctly carried out.
The were five safety assessments including to analyse publicly available satellite imagery of the proposed landing sites to determine if there was evidence of crevassing.
Risk assessments, low light reconnaissance flyovers - when it is easier to spot crevasses, physically probing the ground prior to landing and marking out safe areas for landing.
The above steps were required to be repeated every two weeks or if a significant weather event had occurred.
READ MORE:
- Helicopter pilot David Wood died of hypothermia in Antarctica, inquest hears
- Environment Dept, Helicopter Resources in criminal trial over pilot's death in Antarctica
- David Wood death in Antarctica: government department, contractor charged
- David Wood inquest hears pilot had no training in crevasse rescue
Defence lawyers had argued that pilots were under no obligation to land at any location, were best placed to conduct risk assessments before landing and ultimate responsibility lay with pilots.
While Mr Theakston accepted this, he found this did not absolve the AAD of responsibility for a pilot's safety in such circumstances.
"The AAD hosted those operations and were themselves subject matter experts with respect to operations in Antarctica," Mr Theakston said.
"The AAD was best placed to decide how projects and other operations could be safely conducted."
This was partly why Mr Theakston found Helicopter Resources not guilty, as they could not be expected to have the specialist knowledge about Antarctic operations that the AAD did and it was reasonable for them to rely on the AAD in those circumstances.
Mr Theakston will, in future, hear further submissions from the prosecution and the Commonwealth before imposing a sentence.