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Minister for Defence People Matt Keogh
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Sunday, 30 July
3.00pm
Transcript of media update in Townsville
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Chief of Defence Force General Angus Campbell, Chief of Joint Operations, Lieutenant General Greg Bilton
RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: On this day, at this moment, all of our thoughts, and all of our prayers are for Captain Lyon, Lieutenant Nugent, Warrant Officer Laycock and Corporal Naggs, the four aircrew of the MRH-90, part of the 6th Aviation Regiment, based at Holsworthy, the Australian Army helicopter which went down in waters off Hamilton Island on Friday night. As has been said in the course of yesterday and today, there is now a major international effort engaged in the search and rescue of the crew, which is involving hundreds of Defence Force personnel. Wreckage of the helicopter has been found, but the main body of the airframe is yet to be located. There are specialist assets which are on task right now which are doing that job. Our thoughts are with the aircrew. Our thoughts are with their families and with their teammates who we’ve met today, and who will be experiencing an enormous degree of anxiety in this moment. This accident is a reminder of the unique significance that comes from service in the Australian Defence Force.
GENERAL ANGUS CAMPBELL, CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: I’d like to express my sincere thanks to our international partners and to all of our aviation team, Army, Air Force and Navy who are contributing to the search and rescue effort which is ongoing and which is bringing out the very best of our people. To the families, to the friends, to the teammates in this very, very difficult time my sincere support and commitment that we can do everything we can to determine the location and to see this search and rescue effort undertaken as expeditiously and as effectively as possible. To the people from 6th Aviation Regiment to 5th Aviation here in Townsville to across the community who I and Chief of Joint Operations and the Commander of 16 Brigade have been engaging with, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister thank you for your service and thank you for the effort that you’re committing to take care of our people and to see this through. Thank you.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GREG BILTON, CHIEF OF JOINT OPERATIONS: Good afternoon. Since late Friday evening, early Saturday morning, there has been an ongoing, coordinated and comprehensive air and maritime search and rescue effort in the Whitsundays region. As I speak to you today, there are a number of Australian and US ships on station, they include HMAS Adelaide, HMAS Brisbane and the USS Miguel Keith. There are also specialist divers who commenced operations this morning almost immediately after arrival and we seek to continue to find the full fuselage of that aircraft. That work is detailed and is in deep cooperation with the Queensland Emergency Services led by the Queensland Police Service. I’d like to just acknowledge the support that has been provided by the Queensland Police Service and the Emergency Services more broadly. Equally, the community of Proserpine and the surrounding Whitsunday area and the support they have provided to our responding teams, both those in civil authorities and those in the military. And lastly, I’d just like to acknowledge the reach out and the support that’s been provided by our allies and partners, particularly the United States. Once again, the same resolute support that we’re receiving now as we’ve received in the past, and we’re grateful for it. Thank you.
MARLES: Questions?
JOURNALIST: Yes, what is actually paused right at this moment in terms of the Talisman Sabre exercise?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL BILTON: So, the exercise has recommenced. It recommenced at 1200 hours yesterday. What we did pause was the special operations activities in the Whitsunday area. And equally, you’d be aware that the MRH-90 has been grounded until we better understand what’s occurred regarding the accident. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Lieutenant-General, can you give us an idea of the conditions that the search and rescue teams are encountering? Like, is this – are there particularly strong currents, is it the airframe, how deep the water is?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL BILTON: Yes, in fact, the Whitsundays area is renowned for currents and so you do get some movement of any debris in the water. So, that is a very important factor that affects searching and rescue. The waves and the actual conditions at the moment are moderate, so there’s some challenge, but it’s not insurmountable, it’s not stopping operations. And then, of course, the weather can play a factor as well in the search operations and may from time to time impact aerial surveillance activities. But I’m confident we’ve got the range of capabilities we need to be able to find the fuselage and our four mates. Thanks.
JOURNALIST: If I can ask CDF, what is the future of these aircraft? At one point you said that the MRH-90 was an extraordinary helicopter. Do you still have that view? And is there any chance that we could speed up getting the Black Hawks?
GENERAL CAMPBELL: At the moment, we’re focused on the search and rescue operation and we’ll continue to undertake that and do it as effectively and completely as possible. In terms of the aircraft, there will be an investigation, as there always is in these circumstances, and we will look to that to understand what has occurred here. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: Mr Marles, could you perhaps give us a little bit more of an idea of what this investigation might look into? For example, there’s been reporting previously about problems with a software patch that perhaps wasn’t applied across the fleet. Will that be part of the investigation as you understand it? What’s the scope, please?
MARLES: Well, as you’ll appreciate right now, our focus is on the search and rescue. I mean, the accident occurred on Friday night and there is much work still to be done there. There will, of course, be a full investigation into this accident so that we can properly understand exactly what has happened and make sure that all the lessons that can be learned from this are learned from it.
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Sunday, 30 July
2.45pm
Transcript of media conference at Holsworthy Barracks, Sydney
Chief of Army Lieutenant General Simon Stuart
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Thanks for your time this afternoon. As the Chief of the Australian Army, it’s my sad duty this afternoon to share with you the names of our four missing soldiers. My thoughts and prayers are with their families and their mates here at the 6th Aviation Regiment as they wait for more news about their loved ones. We’ll continue to support their families and their mates in the coming days and weeks, months and years, no matter the outcome.
Importantly, all four families have consented to me sharing the names of their loved ones with you this afternoon. So, it is with their express permission and in accordance with their wishes that I do so. The names of our four missing soldiers are Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Corporal Alexander Naggs. All four soldiers were members of the 6th Aviation Regiment. Today I’m focused on three things, the first and most pressing is to bring Daniel, Alexander, Joseph and Maxwell home to their families. The second is to support their families and their mates. And third is to support the important work of the Air Safety Investigation Team as they work out what went wrong and why.
The work that your army, your navy, your air force does every day is inherently risky and we work hard to ensure that we’ve mitigated those risks. I’m very, very proud of the way in which our people, our soldiers, our sailors and our aviators engage with that risk every day and their achievements. I’m also very proud of the way that the 6th Aviation Regiment, our aviation community in general, has responded to this event. And I’m also deeply grateful for the incredible support that we have enjoyed from our teammates, particularly from our Navy, from our Air Force, our Joint Operations Command, the Queensland Police Service, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and indeed our many international partners and allies. The messages and the practical support has been absolutely outstanding and we can’t thank you enough for that.
I’ve just spoken with our team here at the 6th Aviation Regiment and I know that over the coming days and weeks and months, they will work together as a team, they will rely on one another and we will rely on our community to support us and their families in that time of need. I’d certainly encourage anybody who is feeling this loss today to reach out and seek support, either from your mates, from your family, or from the many services that are available. Thanks very much.
JOURNALIST: Sir, can you tell us a bit more about these soldiers, their experience, how they were regarded by their colleagues and, of course, how their families are holding up?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Yeah, look, you’ve really got to feel for their families and their mates, and I would ask everybody to keep that in the front of their minds as they think and comment and speak about what has occurred. They’re part of a really tight team in a very highly professional, highly skilled aviation unit. This is the aviation unit that supports and performs our special operations set of missions. I couldn’t be more proud of them as professionals, as soldiers, and as people.
JOURNALIST: Sir, can I ask you about software upgrade issues on the Taipan helicopter? Is that going to be part of this current investigation that you’re talking about? And also, is it part of the previous probe into the Jarvis Bay crash, similar with the Taipan helicopter?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Alright, so the Air Safety Investigation team arrived in Queensland today. They will do their work. It’s very thorough investigative work, and the aim is to understand exactly what happened and why it happened. Speculation between now and them doing their work is really unhelpful. I’m not going to speculate, and I would ask others just to consider the families, the other aviators that are involved, and let’s let that team do its work. We will find out what those outcomes are in due course. And the aim of being armed with that knowledge is to ensure that we understand what happened and we can prevent it happening again. As you probably know, we are not flying the MRH today, and we wait until we think it is safe to do so.
JOURNALIST: Just a follow up question on that, does that push the timeline to stop flying the Taipan or take them out of service? Does that push it forward? It was going to be taken out of service in 2024, is that now being considered 2023?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: The aim is still 2024. What happens between now and then from what we learn from this incident is yet to be determined. We just need a bit of time. But today we’re focused on bringing them home, on supporting their families and getting to the bottom, which I expect is going to take some time, given the difficulties of the site.
JOURNALIST: Sir, would any pilots ever want to fly these helicopters again?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Well, our people are incredibly professional. We make sure that we’ve mitigated the risks to the greatest extent possible. Our people are committed and we don’t take unnecessary risks.
JOURNALIST: Lieutenant General, on that, there’s been well documented issues with these helicopters before. Why are they still currently in use?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Because we’ve understood those issues and we have worked to ensure that we’ve mitigated those risks. We don’t fly if we don’t think it’s safe, and that continues to be the case. Going back to the previous question, trying to surmise, trying to suggest things at this stage again is really unhelpful. And I just ask people to wait until we understand what has happened. And right now, let’s be focused on bringing them home, on supporting their families and their friends, and then we’ll get to the underlying cause of factors.
JOURNALIST: And on that, just to confirm, so none of the four men as of yet have been located? The searches are [indistinct]?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: That’s my understanding. I’ll get a brief later today. The team that are undertaking those operations, I’ve got to say, are just really doing a phenomenal job and we want to support them and make sure that that’s done safely and that we can bring these four young men home to their families.
JOURNALIST: Can you talk a bit more about these men, who they are?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Look, we’re going to continue to work with the families to make sure that they have a say in those kinds of things. I know that Australians will want to know who they are as they seek to remember and appreciate them and their service and that will all be available in due course, but I want to make sure that we’re doing that in a way that their families are happy with.
JOURNALIST: Are they fathers? I mean, can you tell us anything about that?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: All I can tell you today is who they are. In due course, we’ll certainly be able to share more of that. But again, really important that we respect the agency and the privacy of the families, they are who really matter today to me, and I hope to everybody else. So, let’s have a little bit of time, give them a bit of breathing space and then allow them to share in who they were as people and I’ll certainly add to who they were as soldiers.
JOURNALIST: Thank you.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Thanks very much.
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Saturday, 29 July
4.45pm
Transcript of media update at Gallipoli Barracks
Talisman Sabre Exercise Director Brigadier Damian Hill and Queensland Police Service Acting Assistant Commissioner Douglas McDonald, Gallipoli Barracks
BRIG DAMIAN HILL: Many of you know the Australian Army MRH-90 Taipan helicopter impacted waters near Lindeman Island, Queensland last night, 28 July. The aircraft was participating in a night-time training activity as part of exercise Talisman Sabre. The incident occurred at approximately 11:00 pm. The search and rescue effort commenced immediately with the second MRH-90 Taipan that was moving with the aircraft that impacted waters. Defence can confirm that there were four people on board at the time of the incident. And sadly, at this stage, those personnel have yet to be found.
The combined search and rescue effort by the Australian Defence Force, the United States and Queensland and federal emergency services continues. We have both air and maritime assets currently in location undertaking this search. That includes both Australian – Royal Australian Air Force maritime patrol aircraft, Royal Australian Navy helicopters, United States Navy maritime patrol aircraft and helicopters, Canadian helicopters, as well as the Queensland and federal agency fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft. As well as Queensland Emergency Services vessels on the scene, Australian Defence Force also has its vessels participating exercise Talisman Sabre deployed on the scene. HMAS Brisbane is also on the scene. HMAS Adelaide will arrive later this evening and then early tomorrow, HMAS Huon will arrive in the vicinity as well.
The families of the missing personnel have been notified. I’d like to reiterate it was Defence’s priority to look after those families, their members, their teammates, and those that know them. Our thoughts, and mine in particular, are with the missing service members, their teammates and their families, and especially the search and rescue teams. We will continue to work with local emergency services, to continue the search. The aircraft accident investigation team will arrive this afternoon to commence investigation into the incident.
As Exercise Director, I put a pause on the exercise this morning. I wanted our people to contact their families to let them know they were safe and what was happening. We have started some limited exercise activity again, mostly in Western Australia and Northern Territory.
As a precaution, the ADF has established an operational pause for all of our MRH-90 fleet.
And again, for those service members, those veterans and those members of the community that are suffering as a consequence of this, we ask that you reach out to the relevant support networks. For those of us in the ADF, that includes the Defence Member and Family Support and Open Arms. I’ll hand over now to emergency services.
DOUGLAS MCDONALD: Thank you, Acting Assistant Commissioner Douglas McDonald. I’m from the Queensland Police Service. I’m here today to give an update in relation to police activities in partnership with the ADF to search for the missing helicopter and those that were on board. At present, we are working closely with the ADF on a search and rescue mission around that Whitsunday area. At this time, we have located a number of items of debris that would appear to be from the missing helicopter. They will form part of the investigation as we move forward into what has occurred up there. At this time, it remains a search and rescue operation, and we have a number of specialist resources in place at the moment working with the ADF, including our police vessel, QPV Damian Leeding from where we’re controlling the search and rescue at sea and working closely with the Navy in that regard as well.
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Saturday, 29 July
9.00am
Statement issued by Defence
Defence can confirm an Australian Army MRH-90 Taipan helicopter has impacted waters near Lindeman Island, off the Queensland coast. The aircraft was participating in a night-time training activity as part of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023 when it was reported missing late Friday night, 28 July 2023. Four crew were on board the aircraft at the time of the incident and are currently missing.
Military and civilian search and rescue aircraft and watercraft are currently conducting search and rescue operations at the incident site.
At this time Defence’s priority is supporting our ADF members and their families. Families of affected personnel have been notified.
Families seeking information and support can call the Defence Member and Family Helpline at 1800 624 608.
Additional support services are available at .
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Saturday, 29 July
8.30am
Transcript of media update in Brisbane
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Chief of Defence Force General Angus Campbell, Talisman Sabre Exercise Director Brigadier Damian Hill
RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. I am joined this morning by General Angus Campbell, the Chief of The Defence Force, and Brigadier Damian Hill, who is the Exercise Director of Exercise Talisman Sabre.
We meet this day with a heavy heart. Last night, just after 10.30, an Australian Army helicopter, an MRH-90, ditched in waters close to Hamilton Island. The helicopter was engaging in a two helicopter mission. There were four air crew aboard. Because there was another helicopter present, a search and rescue was able to commence immediately. As we speak to you now, the four air crew are yet to be found. The search and rescue continues. The families of the four air crew have been notified of this incident and our hopes and our thoughts are very much with the air crew and their families. Our hopes are very much with the efforts of the search and rescue crews as they go about their work right now.
These are early days and there will be much more information to be provided about this incident. But Defence exercises, which are so necessary for the readiness of our Defence Force, are serious. They carry risk. And as we desperately hope for better news during the course of this day, we are reminded about the gravity of the act which comes with wearing our nation’s uniform.
GENERAL ANGUS CAMPBELL, CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE FORCE: Thanks, Deputy Prime Minister. Our focus at the moment is finding our people, and supporting their families and the rest of our team. This is indeed a terrible moment. I really deeply appreciate the assistance that has been provided by a variety of civil agencies, the Queensland Police, the Australian Maritime Safety Agency and the public, as well as our US allies, all of whom have come together to assist, to continue the search and rescue and to find our people. Thank you.
BRIGADIER DAMIAN HILL, TALISMAN SABRE 2023 EXERCISE DIRECTOR: As Exercise Director, I’ve initiated a Pause-Ex across Australia for all participants of Talisman Sabre to enable them all, regardless of their nation, to reach out and let their families know what is going on. I’ll be available throughout the day, in the coming days, as Exercise Director, to provide updates as they become known to us to ensure that everybody is aware of what we’re doing to look after our people.
MARLES: Thank you.
