Colin McRae was 'aware of safety, but nervous', expert tells inquiry

FORMER world rally champion Colin McRae was a "nervous" but safety-conscious pilot, a court was told yesterday.

Stephen Aspin, an air traffic controller who spoke to McRae regularly, said he often spoke to him when he made long flights in his helicopter.

Mr Aspin was giving evidence at the fatal accident inquiry into the crash that claimed the lives of McRae, his five-year-old son Johnny and family friends Ben Porcelli, six, and Graeme Duncan, 37.

It crashed near 39-year-old McRae's Jerviswood mansion in Lanark as he flew home from a friend's farm on 15 September, 2007.

Under questioning at the inquiry at Lanark Sheriff Court, Mr Aspin, who provided information to pilots flying in unrestricted airspace, said: "Mr McRae often used the service.

"I would speak to him a lot. He used to fly regularly from Carlisle to his home in Lanark.

"On the day of the accident he didn't talk to us. It was only a very short flight and he probably didn't think it was worth talking to us.

"If you are flying at low levels it can also be difficult to establish radio communications.

"He was generally a nervous pilot and didn't like talking to air traffic control.

"But he was very safety-conscious. I hadn't spoken to him for about two or three months before the accident."

The inquiry also heard that McRae's aircraft underwent two major repairs less than 18 months before the accident.

The aircraft's rotorhead, a part which drives the main rotor blades, had to be replaced as it had developed a crack.

Repairs also had to be carried out to the aircraft's bell crank.

Brian Park, a chief helicopter engineer with a maintenance company, said he brought a 12-year inspection of McRae's helicopter forward as it could not fly until the defects had been corrected.

He added: "The main rotor head had a crack on it, which immediately is a major problem. I pointed this out to Colin. It is a fibreglass structure and a crack could happen at any time."Under questioning from McRae family lawyer Paul McBride, QC, Mr Park confirmed that a crack in the rotorhead could occur mid-flight at any time with catastrophic consequences.

The court earlier heard from Thomas Mathers, an incident investigator at the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), who told how a radar recording of McRae's fatal flight had shown the aircraft's route.

He said: "There was a sharp left turn, followed by various movements in various directions."

Mr Mathers said the aircraft briefly disappeared from radar coverage, which could have been the result of it flying at low level, before it vanished completely.

The ninth day of the McRae fatal accident inquiry also heard from a member of the Strathclyde Police Mountain Rescue Team, Constable James Baird, 40, who had been called with his colleagues to the Jerviswood crash scene the day after the tragedy to assist with the search after the regular police search teams had encountered difficulties combing the steep and slippery valley side.

He also helped the team to carry the four bodies in stretchers out of the valley after other officers had recovered them from the wreck.

The inquiry then heard evidence from Mr Mathers. He said that, after the Air Traffic Control centre for Scotland at Prestwick had been alerted to the crash, he had obtained a download of the radar records for the Lanark area for late afternoon of the day of the crash.

There was a playback of the final part of the flight in the courtroom, showing the "blip" caused by the helicopter on the radar screen as it made its final approach to Lanark.

Mr Mathers said that it showed the helicopter making "various sharp manoeuvres" as it approached its destination, including one turn of almost 90 degrees. The blip disappeared at 4:04pm, as the helicopter made its final approach to Jerviswood.

The inquiry, before Sheriff Nikola Stewart at Lanark Sheriff Court, continues.