Australia helicopter crash: Remains found in search for victims

Corporal Alex Naggs, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent and Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph Laycock

Human remains have been found in the search for the victims of a "catastrophic" military helicopter crash off Australia's north-east coast.

Four Australian soldiers are presumed dead after the MRH-90 Taipan chopper ditched into the sea during a multinational military drill on Friday.

A major search operation has since located debris, and now the cockpit.

Australian authorities are investigating the incident as criticism over the use of the aircraft grows.

The helicopter went down near the Whitsunday Islands during Exercise Talisman Sabre - a massive training operation which every two years gathers 30,000 military personnel from Australia, the United States, and several other nations.

Authorities immediately launched a search for the missing soldiers onboard - Capt Danniel Lyon, Lt Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Cpl Alexander Naggs, all from the Sixth Aviation Regiment.

But on Monday the defence minister said there was no longer any hope of recovering them alive, after the search party located debris consistent with a "catastrophic incident".

On Thursday, the search coordinator announced another debris field - this time including major parts of the fuselage - had been found some 40m below the ocean surface.

A remotely-operated vehicle had also found unidentified human remains.

"Due to the nature of the debris field, positive identification of the remains is unlikely to occur until we recover more of the wreckage," said Lt Gen Greg Bilton.

The recovery operation - which has been hampered by bad weather - will get a boost in the next 24 hours, as more equipment is due to arrive, he added.

"It is important to collect as much of the debris as we can so we can fully understand how this event occurred."

Australia's army chief last week grounded its remaining 45 Taipans in the wake of the crash, saying none would be flown again until they were found to be safe.

The country has previously grounded the fleet for safety reasons, and officials have complained about repeated maintenance and safety issues.

As recently as March, the Taipans were pulled from the skies after an engine failure in one of the helicopters during a training exercise, forcing the crew to ditch into the sea off the coast of New South Wales.

There were no casualties in the March training exercise. The other MRH-90s were returned to operations on 6 April with "risk mitigations" in place.

Canberra had announced before the crash that it would be replacing its European-made Taipan helicopters with US-made Black Hawks in 2024.