Capt. Danniel Lyon, a decorated Army pilot, warned his colleagues that one day someone would die in a helicopter incident.
Months later, he died in a crash alongside Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Petty Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Corporal Alexander Naggs when their MRH-90 Taipan sank into the sea off the coast of Queensland.
The helicopter, with the call sign Bushman 83, had been flying in formation with three others towards Lindeman Island as part of exercise Talisman Saber in July 2023.
His wife Caitland Lyon remembers the terrible moment when Defense representatives arrived at their door.
“In my opinion it had to be a joke… there was no way in my mind this could actually be happening,” he told an inquest into the accident on Wednesday.
When she finally let them in, they told her that the father of her two children was missing, even though they knew there had been a catastrophic impact.
“It would have been easier to have them tell us the crew was dead… much less cruel than having us wait and pray for a miracle that wasn’t going to happen,” he said.
Troop Commander Captain Dan Lyon (pictured) was one of four men who died in the tragic helicopter crash during exercise Talisman Saber.
Corporal Alex Naggs, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent and Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph Laycock (pictured left to right) were the other three killed in the tragedy.
A few months earlier, Captain Lyon had attended a meeting with Defense to discuss an incident at Jervis Bay, on the New South Wales south coast, where an MRH-90 sank into the sea after an engine failure in March of 2023.
The crew had been praised for their handling of the emergency, but he did not believe the problem had been resolved and adequate measures put in place to prevent a similar incident from occurring.
“Someone is going to die from this someday,” he said at the meeting.
Ms. Lyon recalled that he “definitely didn’t feel like he was being listened to or that the safety of his crew was prioritized.”
The Taipans were retired two months after the fatal July disaster, and their service has already been marred by fleet-wide groundings.
Lyon questioned the decision to conceal and bury the Taipans, saying he could not understand why they were being destroyed when they could be “principal evidence” for the accident investigation.
“I don’t know what possible reason there could be for such drastic and urgent action by Defense,” he said.
He echoed other family members about Defense’s “constant stonewalling” over the crash and recovered remains.
“They just haven’t given us anything and it’s difficult to determine what is correct and what is rumor, and that is very difficult,” Ms. Lyon said.
After being told he would never get the chance to listen to the black box recording, Lyon said he hoped that would change.
The inquest was told that when she sought the support of a social worker to help tell her young son that his father was dead, assistance never came.
The Taipans were retired two months after the fatal July disaster, and their service has already been marred by fleet-wide groundings.
The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter sank into the sea off the coast of Queensland in July 2023
The social worker had tried to call her deceased husband’s mobile number.
“I found it really atrocious,” he said.
Mrs Lyon spoke of the pressure she felt in coming “from above” to hold a funeral as soon as possible, and her desire to say goodbye to her husband once the remains were identified was described as “a hindrance to the unit’s capacity”.
She said that an Army chaplain who had come to her home told her to think about her future husband and future children in response to her suggestion that her husband’s funeral be held on Father’s Day.
“I hadn’t even been able to plan my husband’s funeral, and it was incredibly confrontational and incredibly dismissive,” she said.
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