Trending
A paraplegic pilot has denied being a “drug trafficker” or using cocaine a couple of days before a fatal Northern Territory chopper crash as his private text messages and videos are exposed at Outback Wrangler host Matt Wright’s criminal trial.
Chopper crash survivor Sebastian Robinson is giving evidence at Mr Wright’s trial in the Supreme Court at Darwin more than three years after the aviation accident that killed his friend Chris Wilson and put him in a wheelchair.
The 32-year-old was flying a Robinson R44 owned and operated by Mr Wright’s company Helibrook when it crashed during a crocodile egg collecting mission at West Arnhem Land in February 2022.
Following the crash, Mr Wright was charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the investigation into the fatal crash. The 45-year-old Top End tourism operator has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Mr Wright’s defence barrister began cross-examining Mr Robinson on Wednesday afternoon.
David Edwardson KC has so far quizzed the injured pilot about everything from his recreational drug use to what he told the Australian Transport Safety Bureau from his Brisbane hospital bed.
On Thursday Mr Edwardson suggested Mr Robinson had been “consuming cocaine” at a party two days before the crash but the pilot claimed he had “no recollection of going to the party” and did not remember being there.
Mr Edwardson asked Mr Robinson about a text message he sent his girlfriend a month later saying his “last drink was at Riley’s party”.
“You knew perfectly well you had been at Riley’s party didn’t you?” he asked.
“In the message it says I had my last drink at Riley’s party on the 26th but my memory, I do not remember being at Riley’s party. I’ve been through a lot of trauma,” he replied.
“After the event I have been told that I did attend Riley’s party.”
Mr Edwardson accused him of “making this up as you go along” which the pilot rejected.
“No, I’m not,” he said.
“I can’t remember even writing this message or having this conversation with my partner. This is a couple of days out of my coma.”
Earlier this week, during examination in chief by crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC, Mr Robinson said he only used cocaine a couple of times a year in the five years prior to the crash.
On Thursday, Mr Robinson admitted that from 2018 through until the crash in February 2022, he would sometimes source cocaine for his friends and others he knew.
Mr Robinson at first denied his actions constituted trafficking as the amounts were “very minimal”, but accepted the definition given by acting Justice Alan Blow
“If you buy some drugs and pass them on to someone else who reimburses you, that’s trafficking, as far as the law’s concerned,” the judge said.
“Putting people in connection with each other, I don’t understand what trafficking is, but I’m putting people in connection with each other,” Mr Robinson said.
Mr Edwardson ventilated another text message from late 2019 in which Mr Robinson texted “Footy players in town and want bags. RJ got any?” to a friend named Jesse James.
Mr Robinson said he did not recall who RJ was and whether he was going to supply the football players with cocaine.
“Was it Richmond?” Mr Edwardson asked, referring to Richmond Football Club whose players had visited Darwin in November 2019.
“I don’t recall,” Mr Robinson said.
And in April 2020, someone allegedly texted Mr Robinson saying, “need to get some bags for the weekend” and “could I just get a ball for me?”
“He’s telling you he needs to get some bags for the weekend like others have, on other occasions, asked you if you’ve got a source of cocaine?” Mr Edwardson asked.
“Yes,” Mr Robinson replied.
“You responded ‘not having much luck finding any’,” Mr Edwardson said.
“He’s trying to get, probably, a bag for him, and you’ve been running around trying to find out if you could get any and you weren’t having much luck?”
Mr Robinson said “I don’t know about running around, but yes”.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr Edwardson asked Mr Robinson if he had been supplying alcohol to dry Indigenous communities while working at Arnhem Land.
He referred to a message someone sent Mr Robinson in 2018 asking “What are you taking out there some Charlie?” to which he replied “Nah, just grogs probably”.
“Now were you providing booze to the Indigenous communities at that time in 2018?” Mr Edwardson asked.
“Not that I recall, no,” Mr Robinson replied.
Mr Edwardson then played videos of Mr Robinson sharing rum with an Aboriginal ranger from Maningrida in West Arnhem Land and the pilot handling a plastic bottle lid which Mr Edwardson claimed was drug paraphernalia.
“Yeah, it’s a bottle lid with a cone piece in it that people in Maningrida commonly use to smoke marijuana,” the witness replied, explaining that the ranger was a close friend.
In another video, an Indigenous man offers Mr Robinson a joint, saying “Joint here, you want to smoke with me or what? we got no beer”.
Mr Robinson claimed marijuana “all through Maningrida” and rangers “commonly have marijuana when they’re out working”.
Another video shows Mr Robinson smoking a wooden pipe but he said “hand on my heart, that is a tobacco pipe”.
Mr Robinson said he was not a marijuana smoker but had used a cannabis vape after the crash.
“I know in rehab that a vape got sent to me for medicinal reasons for the pain, nerve pain,” he said.
On Wednesday, the court heard that Mr Robinson was first interviewed by the ATSB on March 10, while he was still in hospital.
Prior to the interview he had been served with a notice requiring him to answer questions at the compulsory interview and told they would want access to his phone.
“And that’s why you deleted parts of the phone before the ATSB interview, didn’t you?”, Mr Edwardson asked.
Mr Robinson said “Yes”.
The pilot agreed he was in a “real bad headspace” when interviewed by authorities.
Mr Edwardson put to Mr Robinson – and the witness agreed – that he knew, at the time of his ATSB interview, that it was compulsory to answer questions and to answer truthfully, regardless of whether it incriminated him in some way, and that lying to the ATSB was an offence.
“And did you tell the truth in this interview?” he asked.
“Not in all aspects, no,” Mr Robinson responded.
Mr Robinson told the court that he was trying to answer the ATSB’s questions as truthfully as he could, based on what he could recall at the time but that some of the answers he gave the ATSB were “not entirely true”.
When pressed by Mr Edwardson, he admitted that he had lied about some things to the ATSB due to “the state I was in”.
This included his ability to perform the role of Helibrook’s HAAMC, that the chopper “had no defects” and that he hadn’t been drinking alcohol in the months before the crash.
“I don’t know (why I lied) . . . To be honest with you, I can’t remember answering that question. Obviously I didn’t tell the truth entirely, but you know, I panicked.”
The court heard that during a later police interview, in September 2022 with Detective Senior Sergeant Corey Borton, Mr Robinson confessed to deleting material from his phone before the ATSB interview.
“To be honest with you, I deleted it. I was in a real bad headspace when ATSB were coming to get my phone . . . I don’t know why I did it. I deleted a heap of shit off my phone . . . I didn’t delete much photos. It was just messages with Matt and all that sort of stuff, and OzRunways. I don’t know why I did it . . . I was in a pretty bad way,” Mr Robinson told the officer-in-charge of the police investigation.
The court heard that prior to the crash, Mr Robinson had performed a range of commercial flying activities using his own helicopters but operating under Mr Wright’s Air Operator’s Certificate.
He would pay Mr Wright a “royalty” for using his AOC to perform jobs including incendiary work, marine survey, firefighting and fire suppression” in Arnhem Land.
Mr Robinson said the egg collecting on the day of the crash was planned to be his last job under Mr Wright’s AOC. His resignation letter, dated February 7, had been prepared but not signed or sent to Mr Wright.
Mr Robinson’s cross examination continues.
A paraplegic pilot has denied being a “drug trafficker” or using cocaine a couple of days before a fatal Northern Territory chopper crash as his private text messages and videos are exposed at Outback Wrangler host Matt Wright’s criminal trial.
Chopper crash survivor Sebastian Robinson is giving evidence at Mr Wright’s trial in the Supreme Court at Darwin more than three years after the aviation accident that killed his friend Chris Wilson and put him in a wheelchair.
The 32-year-old was flying a Robinson R44 owned and operated by Mr Wright’s company Helibrook when it crashed during a crocodile egg collecting mission at West Arnhem Land in February 2022.
Following the crash, Mr Wright was charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the investigation into the fatal crash. The 45-year-old Top End tourism operator has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Mr Wright’s defence barrister began cross-examining Mr Robinson on Wednesday afternoon.
David Edwardson KC has so far quizzed the injured pilot about everything from his recreational drug use to what he told the Australian Transport Safety Bureau from his Brisbane hospital bed.
On Thursday Mr Edwardson suggested Mr Robinson had been “consuming cocaine” at a party two days before the crash but the pilot claimed he had “no recollection of going to the party” and did not remember being there.
Mr Edwardson asked Mr Robinson about a text message he sent his girlfriend a month later saying his “last drink was at Riley’s party”.
“You knew perfectly well you had been at Riley’s party didn’t you?” he asked.
“In the message it says I had my last drink at Riley’s party on the 26th but my memory, I do not remember being at Riley’s party. I’ve been through a lot of trauma,” he replied.
“After the event I have been told that I did attend Riley’s party.”
Mr Edwardson accused him of “making this up as you go along” which the pilot rejected.
“No, I’m not,” he said.
“I can’t remember even writing this message or having this conversation with my partner. This is a couple of days out of my coma.”
Earlier this week, during examination in chief by crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC, Mr Robinson said he only used cocaine a couple of times a year in the five years prior to the crash.
On Thursday, Mr Robinson admitted that from 2018 through until the crash in February 2022, he would sometimes source cocaine for his friends and others he knew.
Mr Robinson at first denied his actions constituted trafficking as the amounts were “very minimal”, but accepted the definition given by acting Justice Alan Blow
“If you buy some drugs and pass them on to someone else who reimburses you, that’s trafficking, as far as the law’s concerned,” the judge said.
“Putting people in connection with each other, I don’t understand what trafficking is, but I’m putting people in connection with each other,” Mr Robinson said.
Mr Edwardson ventilated another text message from late 2019 in which Mr Robinson texted “Footy players in town and want bags. RJ got any?” to a friend named Jesse James.
Mr Robinson said he did not recall who RJ was and whether he was going to supply the football players with cocaine.
“Was it Richmond?” Mr Edwardson asked, referring to Richmond Football Club whose players had visited Darwin in November 2019.
“I don’t recall,” Mr Robinson said.
And in April 2020, someone allegedly texted Mr Robinson saying, “need to get some bags for the weekend” and “could I just get a ball for me?”
“He’s telling you he needs to get some bags for the weekend like others have, on other occasions, asked you if you’ve got a source of cocaine?” Mr Edwardson asked.
“Yes,” Mr Robinson replied.
“You responded ‘not having much luck finding any’,” Mr Edwardson said.
“He’s trying to get, probably, a bag for him, and you’ve been running around trying to find out if you could get any and you weren’t having much luck?”
Mr Robinson said “I don’t know about running around, but yes”.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr Edwardson asked Mr Robinson if he had been supplying alcohol to dry Indigenous communities while working at Arnhem Land.
He referred to a message someone sent Mr Robinson in 2018 asking “What are you taking out there some Charlie?” to which he replied “Nah, just grogs probably”.
“Now were you providing booze to the Indigenous communities at that time in 2018?” Mr Edwardson asked.
“Not that I recall, no,” Mr Robinson replied.
Mr Edwardson then played videos of Mr Robinson sharing rum with an Aboriginal ranger from Maningrida in West Arnhem Land and the pilot handling a plastic bottle lid which Mr Edwardson claimed was drug paraphernalia.
“Yeah, it’s a bottle lid with a cone piece in it that people in Maningrida commonly use to smoke marijuana,” the witness replied, explaining that the ranger was a close friend.
In another video, an Indigenous man offers Mr Robinson a joint, saying “Joint here, you want to smoke with me or what? we got no beer”.
Mr Robinson claimed marijuana “all through Maningrida” and rangers “commonly have marijuana when they’re out working”.
Another video shows Mr Robinson smoking a wooden pipe but he said “hand on my heart, that is a tobacco pipe”.
Mr Robinson said he was not a marijuana smoker but had used a cannabis vape after the crash.
“I know in rehab that a vape got sent to me for medicinal reasons for the pain, nerve pain,” he said.
On Wednesday, the court heard that Mr Robinson was first interviewed by the ATSB on March 10, while he was still in hospital.
Prior to the interview he had been served with a notice requiring him to answer questions at the compulsory interview and told they would want access to his phone.
“And that’s why you deleted parts of the phone before the ATSB interview, didn’t you?”, Mr Edwardson asked.
Mr Robinson said “Yes”.
The pilot agreed he was in a “real bad headspace” when interviewed by authorities.
Mr Edwardson put to Mr Robinson – and the witness agreed – that he knew, at the time of his ATSB interview, that it was compulsory to answer questions and to answer truthfully, regardless of whether it incriminated him in some way, and that lying to the ATSB was an offence.
“And did you tell the truth in this interview?” he asked.
“Not in all aspects, no,” Mr Robinson responded.
Mr Robinson told the court that he was trying to answer the ATSB’s questions as truthfully as he could, based on what he could recall at the time but that some of the answers he gave the ATSB were “not entirely true”.
When pressed by Mr Edwardson, he admitted that he had lied about some things to the ATSB due to “the state I was in”.
This included his ability to perform the role of Helibrook’s HAAMC, that the chopper “had no defects” and that he hadn’t been drinking alcohol in the months before the crash.
“I don’t know (why I lied) . . . To be honest with you, I can’t remember answering that question. Obviously I didn’t tell the truth entirely, but you know, I panicked.”
The court heard that during a later police interview, in September 2022 with Detective Senior Sergeant Corey Borton, Mr Robinson confessed to deleting material from his phone before the ATSB interview.
“To be honest with you, I deleted it. I was in a real bad headspace when ATSB were coming to get my phone . . . I don’t know why I did it. I deleted a heap of shit off my phone . . . I didn’t delete much photos. It was just messages with Matt and all that sort of stuff, and OzRunways. I don’t know why I did it . . . I was in a pretty bad way,” Mr Robinson told the officer-in-charge of the police investigation.
The court heard that prior to the crash, Mr Robinson had performed a range of commercial flying activities using his own helicopters but operating under Mr Wright’s Air Operator’s Certificate.
He would pay Mr Wright a “royalty” for using his AOC to perform jobs including incendiary work, marine survey, firefighting and fire suppression” in Arnhem Land.
Mr Robinson said the egg collecting on the day of the crash was planned to be his last job under Mr Wright’s AOC. His resignation letter, dated February 7, had been prepared but not signed or sent to Mr Wright.
Mr Robinson’s cross examination continues.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
The Us Media 2025
