DOZENS of people from the South East community were left fascinated this morning after watching four Australian Army helicopters land at the Mount Gambier Airport.
The NH90 Taipan choppers stopped over in the region at around 10.45am to re-fuel before they return to base in Townsville after completing a training exercise in Woomera in recent days.
Around 20 army members from the 5th Aviation Regiment in Townsville were on board the aircrafts.
Corporal Lisa Hall said it was pleasing to see how many people from the region had come to witness their arrival.
“We weren’t really expecting this many people, but it is definitely nice to see that people take an interest in our aircrafts and what we do,” Cpl Hall said.
Cpl Hall said it is not common for the aircrafts to land at regional airports, however they took the opportunity to re-fuel in Mount Gambier on this occasion.
“We did stop in Mount Gambier once when we were doing an exercise in Port Pirie, but it is not that common for us to stop at regional airports,” Cpl Hall said.
“We are travelling along the coast back to Townsville, so it is likely that we will also stop at Avalon and Canberra before returning back to base.”
However, the choppers had not yet moved, with one aircraft breaking down at the airport before take-off.
Staff at the Mount Gambier Airport had to scramble to find space for the helicopters to idle, while members of the army worked to fix the problem.
Airport manager, Ian Fritsch said it is still business as usual when these high-profile aircrafts choose to land at the airport.
“We usually have a fair bit of military traffic come through,” Mr Fritsch said.
“They just contact us for fuel and everything generally stays the same with our management of it.”
Mr Fritsch notified people in the region by posting the estimated time of arrival of the aircrafts on social media.
“A formation of four is a bit unusual so I put it up on our social media page, so that people could come have a look,” he said.
“It generally does attract a fair few people here because people are quite interested as it is not something they see very often.”
