Heartbreaking final messages between soldiers before fatal MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash revealed at Brisbane inquest

Fearing the worst, the soldier wrote a frantic message to her army comrade.

“F**kf**kf**k please message me when you have a phone,” she wrote.

They had exchanged messages a few hours earlier, while he was sitting on the tarmac of a military helicopter.

“There’s a weird vibe now that you’re gone,” he wrote earlier.

“I hope you have fun tonight,” replied the soldier, who was given the pseudonym D20, after confirming that she had gone home.

Little did D20 know, this would be the last time she spoke to Captain Danniel Lyon, her friend and army pilot in the 6th Aviation Regiment.

He and three others all perished in deep waters off the central Queensland coast when their MRH-90 Taipan helicopter ditched in the ocean.

Text message scree in front of a generic army background — The latest series of messages between the anonymous troop commander, D20, and Captain Danniel Lyon.(ABC News: Lewi Hirvela)

An inquest into the circumstances in July 2023 this week revealed the final heartbreaking messages between colleagues in the hours before the accident.

But nearly a year later, families and friends of the victims still don’t understand why Bushman 83 crashed that night.

“Toxic” military culture of fatigue and burnout

The plan was careful.

Soldiers descended on Proserpine in the Whitsundays in July last year to take part in Exercise Talisman Sabre, training with US forces.

As night fell, four crews were scheduled to fly MRH-90 Taipan helicopters in formation to pick up special operations personnel from Lindeman Island.

But a few hours before the mission, D20 decided she wanted to leave.

“I didn’t sleep well because I was thinking about how much of my life I had given to the regiment,” she told the inquest.

Captain Danniel Lyon, Corporal Alexander Naggs, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent and Warrant Officer Class 2 Joseph Laycock died when the helicopter crashed.(Supplied: ADF)

The unit alternated between night shifts and consecutive day shifts, often working 12-hour shifts and weekends.

Soldiers were even offered sleeping pills to help them do their jobs, the investigation found.

The anonymous soldier feared that the situation of fatigue and burnout was becoming dangerous, so she voiced her concerns.

It was ultimately useless.

“It was becoming very toxic… it was not a good environment,” D20 told the inquest.

The investigation aims to understand the circumstances surrounding the MRH-90 Taipan and why it crashed.(Provided: Ministry of Defense)

That wasn’t the only thing that worried him.

As a troop commander, the D20’s role was to help soldiers resolve administrative issues, particularly payroll, an increasingly frustrating task.

It would take months, even years, before soldiers were paid for the work they had already done.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to take care of the trash we were dealing with,” she said.

The intense workload, combined with fatigue and a “toxic” culture from the military’s top brass, was reaching boiling point.

“Headquarters were not supportive, they were not interested in taking the human element into account,” D20 told the inquest.

By the time the exercise began for Proserpina, she was cracking under the pressure.

The wreckage of the Taipan was removed from the waters off the Queensland coast in the days following the accident.(ABC News)

“Why am I doing this,” she remembers asking herself.

“Why am I literally burning myself out for an organization that doesn’t care about me?

“I can’t keep doing this.”

In a moment of distress, she told her boss she wanted to go home. He agreed and booked her on the next flight to Sydney.

She felt guilty for leaving her comrades behind for such an important mission, which had taken years of planning.

“I felt like I was stopping and leaving them,” she told the inquest.

His colleague, Captain Danniel Lyon – affectionately known as Diesel – caught wind of what was happening and sent him a message of support.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything,” he wrote as he boarded the Bushman 83 one last time.

Heavy rain tonight

The investigation previously found that the rain was so heavy on the night of the accident that it reached the threshold for cancellation.

Despite this, the initial flight path was changed and the crews continued their mission.

All four helicopters made the first turn in formation but, on the second turn, the Bushman 83 suddenly rose into the air before diving and plunging into the water.

Crews of another plane initially thought a flare had gone off, but it was the Taipan that hit the water at high speed.

The force of the impact was so intense that the soldiers’ bodies were never fully recovered.

The day after the accident, D20 woke up in Sydney to a flood of messages and missed calls.

Heartbreaking final messages between soldiers.(ABC News: Lewi Hirvela)

A series of near misses

In detailed evidence ahead of the investigation, Army pilots described a series of near misses and close accidents in the now-retired MRH-90 Taipan fleet leading up to the 2023 crash.

The planes were unnecessarily complex and difficult to fly, one pilot said.

Another pilot said the helmet-mounted rifle scopes used by soldiers – known as TopOwl – created significant visibility problems in the cockpit, including changing the perception of ground speed and location.

“I started to lose my vision due to ground (perception) and handed the controls over to the flight instructor,” the pilot said, describing a near-miss while using the system.

“The importance of that dawned on me.”

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Another pilot, Major Michael Gallatly, told the inquest he had a “daunting” near-miss in a Taipan – three years before the July crash – when the plane also nosedived suddenly mid-flight on the coast of New South Wales.

He was able to quickly regain altitude by turning off the autopilot, but the experience left him shaken.

“The system could not perform at the required level,” he said.

“At no time was I certain that I could ensure the safety of everyone on board the plane.”

Families are still waiting

Nearly a year later, families of fallen soldiers say they have still not received their loved ones’ death certificates, despite police insistence.

So few remains of the soldiers were found in the crash, it took officers months to verify their identities.

Only thirty bone fragments have been located.

No DNA was recovered from Lt. Maxwell Nugent.

Without a body, Caitland Lyon – Captain Lyon’s wife – previously told the inquest she had been unable to find a military grave for her husband.

Captain Lyon’s family has not yet been able to find a military grave. The fallen airman is pictured here with his daughter.(Provided)

Day after day, week after week, the victims’ families were at the forefront of the investigation in Brisbane.

They listened in great detail to the final moments of their husbands, sons and brothers, stopping only occasionally to take notes or hold hands in support.

Sometimes they came out when it became too difficult.

Most of the time, they sat in stoic silence.

They are still no closer to finding out what happened to their loved ones and are desperate for answers.