‘Crocodile king’ Mick Burns breaks down at Matt Wright’s trial as more covert surveillance recordings revealed

The first witness to give evidence at Outback Wrangler Matt Wright’s trial has broken down on the stand as he recalled rushing to the scene of a fatal chopper crash and discovering his friend Chris Wilson was dead.

The Northern Territory’s ‘crocodile king’ Mick Burns told the supreme court in Darwin on Thursday that immediately after hearing about the accident on February 28, 2022, he asked Mr Wright to make a helicopter available so he could fly to the crash site.

Mr Wright’s aviation business Helibrook owned the Robinson R44, registered VH-IDW, that had crashed during a crocodile egg collecting mission at West Arnhem Land that morning.

Helibrook’s destroyed helicopter was contracted to Mr Burns’ company Wild Harvest Northern Territory which also paid the egg collectors $1000 a day.

Wilson, who was slinging beneath the chopper to collect crocodile eggs, was killed and pilot Sebastian Robinson was critically injured in the accident.

Mr Wright, 45, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the investigation into the fatal crash.

Mr Burns, who has been in the industry since the early 2000s, said that on the morning of the crash, he was scheduled to fly home from Melbourne and before he landed in Darwin, his phone started pinging.

“The first one was just a set of GPS coordinates, which I didn’t think anything of, and that came from Mick Burbidge,” he said.

“I got a missed call from Burbs and then I got a missed call from (employee) Craig (Moore). Then I got a text from Craig saying there had been an accident.

“Craig was actually out at Ramingining and (said) something to the effect that there had been an accident and he was calling CareFlight.”

Mr Burns told crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC that after landing in Darwin, Mr Moore told him “there had been an accident” and “Willow died”.

The Darwin publican and former police officer broke down on the stand as he recalled needing to “go to the site”

“I was calling Matt Wright,” he said.

“I would have (said) words to the effect that I wanted to go out there and I asked if he had a helicopter available.”

Mr Burns drove to Mr Wright’s hangar at Noonamah, south of Darwin, before flying out to the remote crash site with the reality television star and former NT police officer Neil Mellon.

When they arrived at the scene, a CareFlight helicopter was retrieving Mr Robinson, who was critically injured.

“When I was flying in, I can remember that there was a stick in the ground and a crate,” Mr Burns said.

The Darwin businessman became emotional when asked if he had approached Wilson’s body.

The court heard Mr Burns stayed by Wilson’s side for hours until CareFlight returned later that afternoon to retrieve the 34-year-old’s body.

Mr Burns accompanied Wilson back to Darwin in the CareFlight chopper and spoke to his parents.

He also took Mr Robinson’s mobile phone back to Darwin and gave it to the pilot’s mother at the hospital that night.

Mr Burns said that while at the crash site he saw Mr Burbidge look inside of the destroyed chopper’s fuel tank and asked him, “is there any fuel?” to which Mr Burbidge replied “yes”.

Mr Mellon also took the stand on Thursday, telling the jury that after flying to the crash site with Mr Wright, he saw the croc-wrangler and Mr Burbidge “in and around the cockpit” of the destroyed helicopter and heard them talking about the chopper’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT) which had failed to activate on impact.

“They unscrewed the dash, lifted it forward, Jock (Purcell) looked inside and said, ‘yes, it’s plugged in’ and the dash went down and it was screwed back together,” he said.

“I thought they were looking to check that the ELT was connected.”

The former cop also recalled asking the group at the site if they should do anything to “make this helicopter safe because there was fuel and oil and fluids leaking”.

“I recall that Jock Purcell said he disconnected the battery,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the crown finished summarising Mr Wright’s charges.

Mr Gullaci said that in count one, the prosecution alleges Mr Wright lied in a statutory declaration on March 3, 2022, when he told investigators that there was half a tank of fuel in the destroyed chopper when he checked it at the crash site.

The jury was played Mr Wright’s recorded statutory declaration in which he explained to Senior Constable Richard Musgrave what happened on the day of the crash.

Mr Wright told the police officer he “got going as quick as we could” and flew to the crash site.

On the way there, he found out “Willow” had died.

“I saw the boys and everyone was pretty distraught,” he said.

“Willow was there with a tarp over him.

“It just looked like Seb had done everything he could in our training.”

Mr Wright told the investigator he “opened the lid” of the fuel tank at the crash site and “there was fuel in there or fluid in there”.

Senior Constable Musgrave asked how much and Mr Wright replied, “half a tank”.

The defendant also said he took the maintenance release out of VH-IDW’s wreckage.

Count two alleges that Mr Wright attempted to get Mr Robinson to falsify records for Mr Robinson’s own helicopter, VH-ZXZ, by putting hours on to it that had actually been flown in VH-IDW.

Mr Gullaci also told the jury that Mr Wright visited Mr Robinson at the Royal Brisbane Hospital twice in early March 2022 to put “the hard word” on the critically injured pilot to falsify VH-IDW’s flight hours.

“Sebastian Robinson and (his mother) Noelene Chellingworth will both say that in that visit on 11 March 2022, Mr Wright asked Mr Robinson to take hours off IDW, the crashed helicopter, and put them on ZXZ, that is to falsely take those hours because of the concern he had about the fact this would be uncovered,” he said.

Count three alleges that Mr Wright instructed his friend Jai Tomlinson to locate and destroy the original Maintenance Release for VH-IDW.

Mr Gullaci detailed to the jury covert surveillance recordings from Mr Wright’s Gold Coast home, captured in September 2022, in which he is allegedly heard telling Mr Tomlinson to destroy the MR.

“Just torch it, I don’t know where it is but I’m thinking it’s either there, I’ve got to send it to CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) or the ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau),” the crown alleges he is heard saying.

“I reckon CASA are chasing the original to set us up, I don’t remember signing it.

“Just burn the c***.”

Mr Tomlinson allegedly replies: “Whatever, boys, lawyer up boys, how were you meant to know Matty? How the f*** are you meant to know? You don’t know.”

Mr Gullaci says the recording also captured Mr Wright saying “now everyone, f***ing, now they are starting to put the pressure on everyone, you know, they will start squealing”.

“The prosecution says they’re talking about the investigation,” Mr Gullaci said.

“We say that what is being discussed is the destruction of the original maintenance release from IDW so the authorities can’t get it.”

Mr Wright’s defence barrister David Edwardson KC also briefly addressed the jury, saying his client “emphatically” denies all allegations.

“Members of the jury, by his pleas of not guilty to all three counts, Matt Wright denies that he did any such thing,” he said.

He also lamented the “extraordinary amount of public interest in this case”.

“There have been many ill-informed if not scandalous opinions expressed in many different forums from social media to commercial TV,” he said.

“This is a case which requires absolute intellectual rigour and discipline.

“You must confine your task to what you hear in this courtroom, and nothing else.”

The trial before Acting Justice Alan Blow continues.