An Alexandra man says the Civil Aviation Authority was "incompetent and unprofessional" when investigating the death of his pilot brother.
Te Anau-based pilot and father-of-two Bruce Andrews died when a Hughes 500 helicopter he was flying crashed in steep terrain near the start of the Milford Track in December 2013. He was the only person on board.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) investigated the crash and released the draft report to the family in March last year. The final report was released in September.
His brother Robert Andrews, of Alexandra, said the result was ‘‘incompetent and unprofessional’’.
"I’m so annoyed that they haven’t got it correct. It makes me think that the CAA shouldn’t be put in charge of running a bath, let alone a serious investigation."
Mr Andrews said he spent "a lot of time and effort" researching the CAA’s findings and speaking to people in the industry.
"I’m not a pilot personally, but I’ve been in the industry for 26 years."
He found several inaccuracies, from where he trained as a pilot, to what the weather was like that day, he said.
"They also spent only one day at the wreck. One ex-CAA bloke I talked to said you would spend three days."
The draft report pointed to a "protruding bluff" as a reason he may have turned into cloud, which Robert Andrews called "a joke".
"We’ve looked at that spot and there was no protruding bluff there. He’d flown 15,000 hours without incident and in both polar regions in weather a lot worse than on the day and they’re saying he flew past a little bit of rock and that caused him to fly into cloud. Well that’s not correct."
The family was also concerned the draft report moved away from the cause being some kind of medical reason, to one placing the blame on flying in adverse weather, he said.
For the final report, some of the claims were "softened", he said.
"They’ve tried to not be so definitive, but they’ve still got the wrong conclusion, and the draft would have been the final report if we hadn’t said anything.
"We’re never going to know exactly what happened and we accept that. What we won’t accept is them manipulating the evidence to come to the conclusion that they wanted."
The death was "devastating" to the family at the time, he said.
"A lot of people have tragedy and you’ve just got to deal with it and move on, but this has dragged on and on. This report should have been the end of it, but it hasn’t been.
"These reports are supposed to be safety tools, but so many accidents over the past few years have been poorly investigated."
CAA Communications and safety promotion manager Mike Richards said the family of raised "a number of concerns" about the safety investigation.
"The Authority is looking into these concerns and will not comment further on the specific issues raised by Mr Andrews’ family until it has completed its review and discussed its position, in the first instance with the family."
