Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter in near miss with drone

The pilot of the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter was horrified when the drone came within 4m of the aircraft. Photo / ARHT

An Auckland rescue helicopter has had a near miss with a drone after taking off to fly to a Northland car crash where multiple patients were waiting.

The near miss happened on Sunday when the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter took off from Mechanics Bay heading north near Takapuna at 8pm on the urgent mission.

Pilot James Tayler said the chopper had climbed to 400 metres and was flying at 230km/h when the crew saw a drone pass down its right-hand side about 3-4m away.

"We are saw a drone flash past us just clear of the helicopter ... Certainly close enough to give us a surprise, but we didn't have a chance to react to it because we didn't see it until it was pretty much on top of us, so not much we could do.

"If we had hit the drone, it would have definitely done serious damage to the helicopter, possibly catastrophic if it had hit a rotor blade or other critical component," he said.

"If it had hit the windscreen, it would almost certainly have broken it and injured the crew."

Tayler quickly got on the radio to let other helicopters know, and urged drone owners to become familiar with the rules.

The rules with flying drones included that it could not be flown above 120m, they could not be flown over built-up areas without the permission of the property owners underneath, they could not be flown within 4km of an active airfield or helipad, they could not be flown inside air-traffic-controlled airspace or at night. Drones were becoming more of a concern to pilots due to the increase in the number of drones being flown, he said.

"The sort of work we do often involves us having to fly at very low level while either searching for people or coming into land at accidents sites or beaches or things. There are alot of people using drones at those sort of locations so it's something we discuss as crews pretty regularly. I don't think we've had a near miss quite that close, certainly not recently.

"They are a great tool for people but they can be very dangerous in the wrong circumstances."

The two-car crash the helicopter was attending occurred on State Highway 1, north of Moerewa, between Hautapu Rd and Nisbet St, about 7.30pm.

Following the crash, a young boy was flown to Starship Hospital with critical head injuries, and emergency services also assisted a woman in a critical condition.

One other person also received serious injuries, while two more had moderate injuries. All were taken to Bay of Islands Hospital for treatment.

When emergency teams first arrived at the crash scene, one person was trapped in a vehicle while one of the cars was also engulfed in flames.