Reality TV star Matt Wright visited a pilot while he was heavily sedated in hospital following a deadly helicopter crash, asking him to manipulate flying hour records, a court has been told.
Outback Wrangler co-star Chris “Willow” died in the February 2022 accident, falling to the ground from a sling beneath the chopper while collecting crocodile eggs in remote swampland in the Northern Territory.
The aircraft then crashed, seriously injuring pilot Sebastian Robinson.
Now a paraplegic, he gave evidence at the Supreme Court in Darwin by video link from his wheelchair on Wednesday.
Wright is on trial on three charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice, having pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege he was worried crash investigators would discover that flight-time meters were disconnected regularly to extend flying hours beyond official thresholds and that paperwork was falsified.
Robinson told the court Wright visited him in Royal Brisbane Hospital 10 days after the crash when he was still in very bad shape, heavily sedated with “tubes coming out of me everywhere”.
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC asked the 32-year-old what Wright had asked of him at his hospital bedside and he replied “to manipulate hours on my aircraft”.
“He asked if I would consider putting any of his hours, from his helicopter, onto my helicopter.”
The court was told Robinson was being asked to put egg-collecting hours flown on Wright’s crashed helicopter onto his own helicopter, which was not fitted with equipment for egg collecting.
Robinson said he told Wright he would think about his request and when he made a return visit the next day told him “I didn’t feel comfortable doing it”.
Wright had also asked to go through his phone and “delete a few things”, Robinson said.
At the time he was “scared and panicked” and didn’t know who to trust, he said.
The crash and his life-changing injuries had been “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life”.
The court was told Robinson was asked to fly egg-collecting missions in Arnhem Land, where COVID restrictions were in place, because Wright was an anti-vaxxer so could not enter the Indigenous territory unvaccinated.
Jurors heard that Wright visited Robinson in hospital despite requirements to show a COVID vaccination certificate and having to complete a test for the virus.
The charges against Wright do not relate to the cause of the accident and the prosecution does not allege he is responsible for either the crash, Wilson’s death or Robinson’s injuries.
