An expert opinion on the fatal crash of a helicopter by entrepreneur Hans-Peter Haselsteiner in November 2021 in Wiener Neustadt has now revealed that the pilot had “acted remarkably carelessly”. Pilot Roland P., 50, died in the crash.
At the end of last year, the helicopter crashed while approaching Wiener Neustadt Ost airfield. The helicopter had burst into flames. Shortly before the accident, visibility was just 400 meters, around 6 p.m. visibility near the ground was around 150 meters – even for a slow-flying helicopter too little to land safely under visual flight conditions The pilot acted conspicuously carelessly due to the prevailing weather conditions and low visibility,” the public prosecutor’s office confirmed. According to the court expert for aviation and accident analysis, there was a “serious breach of the pilot’s duty of care,” explained Erich Habitzl, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office set. Owner Haselsteiner was not in the helicopter. The pilot apparently did not expect any ground contact. The machine’s landing gear was still retracted when it crashed. Haselsteiner, the owner of the Bell 429 helicopter, had previously disembarked at Semmering with former politicians and entrepreneurs and was not in the helicopter during the crash.
source site-12