Qualla: 2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash

2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

No mayday call. No transponder signal. No black box recording. On the morning of 21 November 2015, a Eurocopter AS350 Astar carrying six tourists and their pilot simply vanished into the cloud and rain shrouding Fox Glacier. When the pilot's flatmate, Thomas Darling, flew another helicopter up to search, he found wreckage scattered across a crevasse at about 2,500 meters elevation. All seven people on board were dead.

2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash: Seven Lives, One Morning

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The six passengers had come from opposite sides of the world for the same experience: a scenic flight over one of New Zealand's most dramatic glaciers. Four were British, two Australian -- tourists drawn to the South Island's West Coast for the kind of aerial view that brochures ...

2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash: Ice, Weather, and a Treacherous Recovery

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The crash site lay in one of the most hostile environments imaginable: shifting ice, 20-meter crevasses, and blocks of glacier bigger than buildings. Emergency helicopter crews who reached the area on the day of the crash saw no sign of life but could not land because the weather...

2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash: What the Investigation Found

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission released its report on 23 May 2019, and the findings were damning. The helicopter had struck the glacier surface at high forward speed with a high rate of descent. Its all-up weight almost certainly exceeded the maximum permitted. T...

2015 Fox Glacier Helicopter Crash: Accountability and Its Limits

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Days before the crash, the CAA had received a complaint about the lack of landing markers on the glacier. In May 2016, the CAA suspended the air operator's certificate of Alpine Adventures owner James Patrick Scott. He and his operations manager Barry Waterland were charged under...