A police officer’s son has been named as one of the four missing crew members of Friday’s Defence helicopter crash.
Warrant Officer Joseph Laycock, known as Phil, is the son of a long-serving NSW Police Superintendent.
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The other three men have been revealed to be Captain Daniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent and Corporal Alexander Naggs.
Police have made public the identities with permission from their families as the search for the presumed dead men enters its third full day.
“Our hopes and our thoughts are very much with the aircrew and their families,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Saturday.
“Our hopes are very much with the efforts of the search and rescue crews as they go about their work right now.”
About 800 defence and emergency services personnel are assisting the search, with debris from the crash found on Saturday.
The men were on the MRH90 Taipan military helicopter when it crashed into the ocean of the Whitsundays on Friday.
The MRH90 helicopters are in the process of being phased out, but it’s not expected they will be grounded until their retirement in 2024.
In March, one of the choppers went down near Jervis Bay off the coach of New South Wales with 10 people on board. While all escaped, the decision was made to retire the fleet.
Back in 2019, the entire Taipan fleet was grounded to fix their tail rotor blades.
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