Vauxhall helicopter crash victim's sister tells of her three year struggle for answers as inquest into tragedy begins

Scenes of debris after the helicopter crash in Vauxhall
Getty

The sister of a pedestrian killed when a helicopter hit a crane in Vauxhall today spoke of her three year struggle for answers as an inquest into the tragedy began.

Matthew Wood, 39, from Sutton, died after the helicopter clipped a high-rise crane on an exclusive Thames riverside apartment block in heavy fog and plummeted 700ft into the street where he was walking to work.

The helicopter pilot Pete Barnes, 50, who had flown in Bond film Die Another Day and Saving Private Ryan, was also killed in the crash into the Tower at St George Wharf on January 16, 2013.

Twelve people were injured.

The helicopter hit a crane before crashing to the ground killing the pilot and a pedestrian
Getty

Speaking ahead of the start of a two-and-a-half week-long inquest into the deaths this morning, Mr Wood’s sister Amanda said: “The last nearly three years have been hard, but my brother wouldn’t want us down and upset all the time.

“He would want us to remember the good times so when I get down that’s what I try and do.

“Over the past nearly three years you notice the amount of other helicopter accidents that have happened in the country and my thoughts go out to all the other families.

Debris in the street after the crash in 2013
PA

“My brother was one of life’s good guys, he put his family and friends and his two cats before himself. He would always know what to say to cheer someone up, the thing I miss most about him was our brother sister banter, and not being able to have one last conversation with him.”

Mr Barnes, a veteran pilot with more than 25 years’ experience had been flying from Redhill in Surrey to Elstree, Hertfordshire to pick up a client for his employer, Rotor Motion, but had asked to divert to Battersea heliport because of bad weather.

It is thought the client was restaurateur and businessman Richard Caring, who had twice urged Mr Barnes to delay or cancel the flight because of the weather conditions.

The father-of-two, from Mortimer, Berkshire, hit the construction crane at the top of the tower near Vauxhall Bridge at 8am.

The inquest at Southwark Coroners’ Court will look at the events leading up to the crash.

The damaged crane after the crash in Vauxhall
PA

A pre-inquest hearing in October heard Mr Barnes, who had clocked up more than 10,500 hours of flying in a helicopter, may have may have felt “pressured” to fly on the morning of the crash.

Keith Morton QC, for the Civil Aviation Authority, cited “potentially significant” evidence of a telephone conversation made by Mr Barnes to another pilot at 6.49am on the morning of his death.

Victim: Matthew Wood

Mr Morton said: “It is to the effect that Mr Barnes considered cancelling the flight, but felt pressured to fly….It has potential to be of some relevance in relation to what was in his own mind at the time, and what was happening in terms of weather, and what the motivation for flying was.”

Coroner Dr Andrew Harris has also previously said the inquest would also examine why local authority had first refused planning permission for the tower to be built, before it was granted by the Secretary of State in 2005.

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