It was supposed to be just another goat cull. But this pilot and his passenger narrowly escaped with their lives. Here’s their story.

I was contracted to do a goat shoot for a forestry company, which I’ve done for more than 25 years.

The night before the shoot, the forestry supervisor, who was also my shooter, advised me we had permission to also shoot on the neighbouring farm.

The day of the cull, a powerline at the top of the farm, near some gullies, remained at the front of my awareness.

Because I’ve sprayed these gullies every winter for the past 15 years, I was reasonably confident we were all good. I’d never had any issues in the past.

Inside one of the gullies we shot a mob of goats about 300 metres from the powerline.

I turned right and started climbing out, but immediately I felt something was wrong.

There was a lateral wobble and vibration.

As I turned to look out my door, I saw a momentary glint of a wire under my pilot’s side skid, and at a 90-degree angle to it.

I knew straight away I’d hit a wire of a new electric fence and was now facing down the gully.

I screamed to the shooter to hang on as I was fighting the controls, and waiting to lose that battle at any second. I thought the wire would wrap around the rotor and that we were done for.

I identified a swamp as the closest and best option to land, and we descended towards it on a 10- to 15-degree angle.

The oscillation was getting worse, but I only had one thing in mind, ‘Get to the swamp!’

I realised we were going to hit quite hard so I pulled collective, and to my astonishment the cyclic, collective, and pedals all functioned.

I flared a little, touching down harder and faster than normal, but thankfully, upright. I shut down immediately.

Mixed emotions overwhelmed me. Obviously I was massively relieved, but at the same time, I felt sick about what might have been.

A post-landing check revealed that the wire was still connected to the passenger side skid and had half hitched around it.

It had broken off at the top strainer and had threaded its way down with an insulator locking it in place around the skid.

The jolting and oscillation I could feel were the insulators pinging off the fence on the opposite side of the gully.

The wire hadn’t touched anywhere except the passenger side skid. Truly unbelievable. I guess it was our lucky day – one from which I learned a number of lessons¹.

In hindsight, I should have rung the farm manager and asked if there were any new hazards on the farm. Because I knew that gully well, I was complacent in thinking that I also knew the hazards well. But the wire was new, and it caught me by surprise. It could have killed us both.

Today, I’m way more vigilant about hazard identification. Take it from me. It’s not just a paper trail – it may save your life.

Footnotes

¹ The pilot’s report to the CAA identified contributing human factor issues, and the lessons from the occurrence that would avoid this happening again. The CAA did not undertake a subsequent investigation.

Photo: iStock.com/NataliaCatalina