Good morning, welcome to Brisbane Times’ news blog for Wednesday, April 9. Today the city can expect a cloudy day and a top temperature of 26 degrees.
In this morning’s local headlines:
The findings from a two-year investigation into what caused the deadly midair Sea World helicopter crash are due to be handed down.
Four people died and nine people were injured when two helicopters collided on the Gold Coast Broadwater in January 2023, during the peak of the busy summer holiday season.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will hand down its final report into the crash today, more than two years after the collision.
An interim report released in January 2024 revealed that a toxicology report for pilot Ashley Jenkinson, who died in the crash, had traces of cocaine in his system.
The examining forensic pathologist reported no signs of chronic stimulant use and the cocaine was unlikely to have been consumed within 24 hours of the crash and could have been taken up to four days prior.
The ATSB noted it was unlikely the drug level would have impaired the pilot’s skills.
Also on Brisbane Times today:
The Brisbane Place project is led by JGL Properties, previously responsible for the Jubilee Hotel redevelopment in Fortitude Valley.
The heritage-listed Stock Exchange Hotel and F.H. Faulding Warehouse would be transformed into a two-storey wine bar, upmarket retail spaces and the lobby for a new 39-storey office building under the latest plan to revitalise the Brisbane CBD.
As graziers in western Queensland and north-western NSW count the terrible cost of floods in lost livestock and wrecked fences, and consider the years of rebuilding ahead, the waters still spreading across the landscape are also bringing new life to the dry interior.
