A helicopter pilot flying four members of his family to a surprise party should have turned back before descending into low cloud and smashing into a mountain in Snowdonia, an inquest heard.
Kevin Burke, 56, a company director, flew at 140mph into a wall of steep ridges and rocks on Rhinog Fawr mountain in north Wales and was killed instantly along with his wife, Ruth, 49, brothers Donald, 55, and Barry, 51, and sister-in-law Sharon, 48.
The family members, all from the Milton Keynes area, were heading to Dublin on the afternoon of 29 March last year.
A hearing in Caernarfon in north Wales was told that Burke had set off in good conditions but came across thick cloud and turbulence in Snowdonia.
The alarm was raised in the early evening when Burke’s privately owned aircraft did not land in Dublin at 2.30pm as expected. Their bodies were later found with the wreckage of the helicopter in the remote Rhinog mountain range.
Investigators concluded that Ruth, a fellow company director, was in the front passenger seat next to her husband and the other passengers were in the rear.
A consultant forensic pathologist, Dr Brian Rodgers, said all five sustained massive impact trauma from the collision and were identified from their dental records.
He said toxicological tests on Burke showed he had consumed cocaine at some point before the crash but Rodgers said he thought the usage was non-recent and ruled it was “highly unlikely” the pilot was under the influence of the drug at the relevant time.
The inquest was told Burke would fly the helicopter – which was properly maintained and in good condition – at least once a week for business or pleasure.
He held a private pilot’s licence, was “very experienced” and had flown the route to Dublin previously, said a senior inspector at the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, Paul Hannant.
The terms of his licence did not allow Burke to fly in cloud, but he had recently undertaken a proficiency test in which he satisfactorily turned away in similar poor visibility.
Hannant said: “The main point about the weather on that day was to begin with it was good, but as you got to Wales there was a complex system of weather which brought down the cloud and created turbulence.”
He said Burke should have completed a 180-degree turn away from the rising ground instead of continuing to descend. “The aircraft should have turned round,” he added. “Sadly, it did not and struck the mountain.”
In conclusion, the senior coroner for north-west Wales, Dewi Pritchard Jones, said Burke’s training and licence was for flying in conditions where he was able to see the terrain and that “ideally” he should have turned back in the thick cloud.
He pointed out that near the crash site there was an area of “relatively flattish land” and said: “Had he seen that through the cloud I am certain that would have given him the false confidence that he was at a good and safe height above ground level.
“Unfortunately, Rhinog Fawr is not a mountain that gradually increases in height. It is more a series of walls of steep ridges and rocks. My belief is that his instruments would not have given him much warning of the ridges.
“Being at the height he was, it was inevitable he would hit that ridge. It led to the complete destruction of the aircraft.
Recording verdicts of misadventure for all five deceased, he said: “Here we have a situation of sheer bad luck. This aircraft was not greatly below its safe height. It just clipped the mountainside.”