EXCLUSIVE
Outback Wrangler host Matt Wright praised the selfless actions of pilot Sebastian Robinson during a police interview just three days after the chopper crash that killed his Netflix co-star Chris “Willow” Wilson, newly released court exhibits reveal.
A jury last year found the reality television star guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice over his actions following the fatal 2022 crash.
On Wednesday, the Northern Territory Supreme Court released a trove of audio exhibits tendered during Wright’s trial, including his recorded police interview, intercepted telephone calls and secretly recorded conversations captured on a listening device inside his Queensland home.
Among the exhibits was an audio statutory declaration Wright gave to NT Police in March 2022, just three days after the fatal crash.
Wright told police that one of his companies, Helibrook, owned and operated the destroyed helicopter and that as soon as he heard about the crash, he flew to the site with crocodile harvester Mick Burns and former police officer Neil Mellon.
As they arrived, a CareFlight crew was preparing to take off with Robinson on board, who had been critically injured.
Detective Senior Constable Richard Musgrove asked Wright for his assessment of the scene.
“Everyone was pretty distraught and upset … and then saw the chopper down where it was and spoke to Burbs (pilot Michael Burbidge) a bit,” Wright said.
“It looked like Seb had done everything he could in our training and our power (as) a pilot to get Willow down safely.
“It was everything we spoke about, everything we did, it was like textbook in a way.”
The Robinson R44 had crashed during a crocodile egg collecting mission in remote West Arnhem Land. Wilson, the egg collector, had been suspended beneath the helicopter on a 100-foot sling immediately before the aircraft came down.
Wright’s wife, Kaia, was present throughout the police interview and at times questioned her husband herself.
“What about your assessment of the site … you know how you said Sebi did what he could? What made you say that?” she asked.
Wright said it was because “Willow wasn’t attached to the helicopter anymore” and referenced Helibrook’s standard operating procedures.
“You see that in the SOPs, the way we’ve structured them, if something goes wrong with the helicopter you have to try and get that (crocodile egg) collector off (the hooks) as safely as you can and put yourself down wherever you can,” he said.
“And in that instance when you flare and you try to put them down and you then sacrifice yourself cos you drop down all your rotor speed.
“And he’s tried to do that and dropped Willow down but too high … and then 30m away the helicopter crashed so it was all relatively close.”
Sen-Const Musgrove asked Wright why he believed that was what had happened.
“The wind was on the nose. It was a nice wind, an easy wind, and so he’s come into that and there’s a clear spot just back from where they’d gone in,” Wright said.
“It’s like, that’s where they’ve lifted off from, not far away at all … and then literally Sebi stepped it into wind and just tried to come down, flared, dropped Willow off and put himself into the trees.
“Just didn’t go as textbook as he would’ve liked.”
Sen-Const Musgrove then asked Wright to explain why he believed Robinson had flared the helicopter.
Using a fan analogy, Wright explained the aerodynamics involved.
“When you flare a helicopter like that you bring all your centre of gravity to point straight in underneath it which then induces the flow underneath the rotors, speeds the rotors up, gives you that little bit of lift right at the end but that’s your lifeline.
“Sebi chose to use that for Willow.”
At another point during the hour-long interview, Mrs Wright told police she believed conditions had been favourable and the helicopter had been relatively light because the egg crates were empty.
“Yeah there was no weight in it, half fuel,” her husband agreed.
“Well that’s what looked like was in the tanks, we looked in the tanks and that’s what we could see but…”
Later in the interview, Sen-Const Musgrove returned to the topic of fuel.
“So the machine was pretty flat and just opened the lid to look in and just to look through them but they were crumpled up, so … but there was, um, fuel in there – or fluid anyway,” Wright said.
“I looked. I didn’t have a torch or anything but I could see the shimmer of it.”
Musgrove asked: “In your estimation how much fuel was left there?”
“I dunno, maybe half a tank,” Wright replied.
However, an intercepted telephone conversation between Wright and friend William Cook in December 2022 captured Wright giving a different account.
“I don’t want to fucking put Sebi in it, but I’m not gonna fucking get put in the clink because of his downfall,” Wright said.
“Anyone who knows how to fly, you know the consequences of what happens when you punch someone off and try and save your ass. That’s pretty much what’s happened.
“My downfall was I was trying to protect Seb and said I looked in the tank and I thought it was half a tank. I didn’t see any fucking fuel in the fucking tank. There was zero.”
Another covert recording captured a conversation between Wright and his mother-in-law, Lynn Hazelton, at his Queensland home in October 2022, during which the pair discussed the aftermath of the crash and Wright’s inspection of the wreckage.
“It’s unfortunate, the Neil factor, you know the whole … it’s a cluster fuck, it’s a cluster fuck,” Ms Hazelton said.
Wright replied: “You know what, fucking hell, sitting out there fucking Jocko (Jock Purcell) was like, ‘Matty it’s all good, don’t touch anything’. ‘Nah Jocko, let me look’. ‘Matty it’s all good, don’t touch’. I had to check for myself. I didn’t know if Seb had fucked with the machine.”
“So I was doing it to protect, yes me and Seb, and fuckin’, anyway it was all good,” Wright said.
“It was all good. No one touched nothing, no one tampered with nothing.”
In another conversation recorded in September 2022, the Wrights discussed how many hours the destroyed helicopter, VH-IDW, had actually flown compared with the hours recorded on its maintenance records, and speculated about what had caused the fatal crash.
“If you’re being a realist, like an honest-with-yourself realist, how many hours was it (the chopper) overflown?” Mrs Wright asked.
“A couple of hundred,” Wright replied.
“Maybe 10 per cent.”
Asked how many hours were recorded on the helicopter’s hour meter, Wright said about 2,000.
“What do you think it was that made it stop?” Mrs Wright asked. “What do you think it was?”
“I think it was the f**kin’ fuel line,” Wright replied.
Mrs Wright asked: “So all the fuel issues before, like with the leak and stuff?”
“Well, now they think it ran out of fuel. I thought I was trying to protect him,” her husband replied.
Later in the same conversation, Wright expressed concern that the helicopter’s recorded flight hours would not reconcile.
“The hours aren’t going to match somewhere along the line, right. That’s what my concern is,” he said.
“I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to tell the whole f–king lot either. But where is the happy medium, like in the middle?”
Another recording, captured in November 2022, features Wright and his wife discussing the helicopter’s flight records.
“It just goes against, that goes with my argument of why did you try to get Seb to…” Wright asked.
Mrs Wright’s response is unintelligible on the recording.
“Yeah, but I thought he flew that so I handed him that, that’s what was logged, but you know, there was thirty or forty hours there that we were trying to fucking make up, and we did, it doesn’t matter which way I looked at it,” Wright said.
“(It doesn’t matter which way) I look at that, there’s no good answer for CASA.”
The Nightly approached the Wrights for comment through their lawyer but received no response.