Australian Transport Safety Bureau executive director of transport safety, Nat Nagy, said the agency particularly wanted to source any dash-cam footage.

“The ATSB is appealing for any other witnesses who have yet to record their details with the NSW Police or the ATSB to do so immediately,” he said.

“They can contact NSW Police on 131 444 and the ATSB on 1800 020 616. 

“If anyone has captured the accident on their vehicle’s dash-cam please contact NSW Police and the ATSB as soon as possible.”

The Johns River crash claimed the lives of Grant Burley and his fiancee Suzanne Rohleder. They were flying from Toowoomba to Mr Burley’s Johns River property when the Cessna 310 he was piloting crashed.

Mr Nagy said he was unable to provide information on the cause of the crash because it remained an active investigation.

“The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has deployed four transport safety investigators from Canberra to investigate the tragic double fatality accident involving a twin-engine Cessna 310 aircraft which occurred at about 4pm last Saturday afternoon.

“The investigators are currently in the process of a meticulous and thorough investigation of the wreckage and of the surrounding area.

“As part of the investigation, they will be closely examining various aircraft components, attempting to collect any recorded data from the aircraft’s electronics, they will be obtaining air traffic control audio recordings and surveillance data, obtaining maintenance records, and they will soon be interviewing a number of witnesses to the accident who have come forward.

“The investigators have expertise in the fields of aircraft operations, engineering and maintenance, and they will likely remain on site for another two days before returning to Canberra to begin analysing their collected evidence.”

Mr Nagy said that the ATSB would release a preliminary report in about 30 days’ time.

That report is expected to include a summary of what was found as part of the on-site investigation. This will be publicly available from the ATSB website. The investigators will be working towards producing a final report, which we expect will be publicly released in about 12 months’ time.

“However, should a critical safety issue be identified during the course of the investigation, the ATSB will immediately notify relevant parties and seek a safety action to address the issue,” he said.

“The purpose of our investigation is to find out how and why it happened so we can make safety recommendations to reduce the risk of an accident like this happening again.”

Mr Nagy thanked the NSW Police and the State Emergency Service for providing assistance to the ATSB on site and NSW Roads and Maritime for assisting with reducing the speed limit on this section of the highway down to 80 kilometres per hour while we conduct this investigation.

“I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the family and friends of the pilot and his passenger who were killed,” he said.