A seasoned crocodile egg collector has been brought to tears in court after being asked how he learned of Outback Wrangler co-star Chris "Willow" Wilson's fatal helicopter crash.
Michael "Mick" Burns of Wild Harvest NT was the first witness in the Supreme Court trial of the reality TV show's other star, Matt Wright, who has been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice after the February 2022 crash.
The crown case is that Wright did not properly record helicopter flying hours and was concerned crash investigators would uncover the issue, triggering possible charges against him and his company.
Wright has pleaded not guilty to three charges.
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC told the jury the charges did not relate to the cause of the accident and it was not alleged Wright was responsible for the crash or the death.
Mr Wilson was in a sling under the helicopter on a crocodile-egg collecting mission when it plunged to the ground, killing him and critically injuring pilot Sebastian Robinson, who is now a paraplegic.
The crash happened on a paperbark swamp along the King River in Arnhem Land, a remote part of the Northern Territory.
Mr Burns on Thursday told the jury one of his employees rang him on the morning of the crash.
Asked if he had been close to Mr Wilson, Mr Burns was unable to reply and used a tissue to wipe away tears.
The jury heard Mr Burns had started egg collecting in the early 2000s to sell to crocodile farms.
He said the job held a "fair degree of risk" with collectors having to fend off female crocodiles with a long stick and keep their egg crates between themselves and the reptiles.
Mr Burns, now retired from egg collecting missions, flew to the crash site with Wright hours after the crash.
He said he stayed by Mr Wilson's side at the scene before flying with his body on a CareFlight chopper back to Darwin.
That evening he handed over Mr Wilson's phone to his parents.
Mr Gullaci said Wright ignored requests from aviation safety agencies to hand over a maintenance release form for the crashed helicopter and gave orders "to just torch it".
It was also the crown case that Wright visited Mr Robinson in Royal Brisbane Hospital days after the crash and was "putting the hard word on him" to falsify helicopter flying hours.
Wright allegedly wanted Mr Robinson to falsify documents to show that his own helicopter had flown egg-collecting hours, not the crashed chopper, Mr Gullaci said.
Mr Robinson had refused to do so, the prosecutor said.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority in 2022 requested Wright surrender documents, notably the original maintenance release for the crashed aircraft, but they were never provided.
Covertly recorded conversations between Wright and associates show he wanted the document destroyed so aviation authorities could not get their hands on it, Mr Gullaci said.
Jurors would hear Wright ask an associate to find the document and "just torch it", he said.
But defence senior counsel David Edwardson KC said his client "emphatically denied" trying to get Mr Robinson to falsify flight records and telling an associate to find and destroy the maintenance release.
The credibility of Mr Robinson and family members who would give evidence was seriously in question, he said.
The maintenance release had been shown to an aviation safety authority member at Wright's home and a scanned copy was later sent to authorities by Wright's wife Kaia, Mr Edwardson said.
It was not in dispute that it was regular practice among the NT helicopter community to manipulate flight-hour data and disconnect meters so aircraft could fly longer than they should, the defence barrister added.
The Darwin trial before acting Justice Allan Blow is expected to take up to five weeks.
