‘The burns were horrific … A lot of the people could not talk,’ says Mark Law

A commercial helicopter pilot who led a team that rescued 12 victims from the White Island volcano eruption has told how he believed he was their last hope of survival.

“We found people dead, dying and alive but in various states of unconsciousness,” said Mark Law, a tour company boss who flew to the volcano and spent an hour on the ground even as a pillar of ash towered above them.

Unsure whether emergency services would reach the island in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty because of fears for their safety, they loaded the victims into the helicopters themselves and flew to the mainland.

“We heard they were not coming to the island,” said Law, 48, who has been taking sightseers to Whakaari/White Island for 10 years. “It’s their decision. I wasn’t involved in that. We just took care of our own business.”

Six people have been confirmed dead in the disaster and a further eight are assumed to have died on the island. Twenty-seven of the 31 people taken to hospital sustained greater than 30% body-surface burns, and more deaths among the injured were expected. A police investigation has been opened.

Play Video 1:51 New Zealand volcano: fatal eruption on White Island – video report

Law, who operates two AS350 Squirrel helicopters, said he had not been flying on Monday but was alerted when he saw a plume of ash rising from the island about 30 miles (48km) offshore.

“I thought, that doesn’t look good and I spoke to one of my pilots,” he said. “We called PJ’s [White Island Tours, a company that operates tourist boats] and another fishing friend. They said there had been a sizeable event. We decided to head on out.”

Law piloted one Squirrel while his colleague Jason Hill flew the second with a fellow pilot, Tom Storey, as a passenger. Within 20 minutes they were directly over the island.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Helicopter pilots Mark Law (left) and Tom Storey, leaving a meeting with New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern in Whakatāne on Tuesday. Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty

“I descended down into the crater, down to 200ft [60 metres],” Law said. “We could see people very easily from the air. They were lying down or spreadeagled. We were looking for somewhere we could land that would not be a big problem. The dust is very acidic and that’s not good for the engines.

“We both landed in the centre of the island where we felt it was OK. It was ashing but we could deal with it. We went to assess everyone. We were moving around tending to people who were in real distress. We wanted to reassure them. We found people dead, dying and alive but in various states of unconsciousness.”

Storey later told New Zealand television that the fine dust that filled the air and had formed a thick carpet on the ground added to their problems.

Play Video 1:41 'The scale is devastating': families and Ardern react after New Zealand volcano erupts – video

“It felt like running through talcum powder,” he said. “It was very hard to breathe and without a gas mask we were gasping for air, but … adrenaline takes over. I’d rather break a few rules and save some lives than sit here wondering what we could have done.”

Law, a former soldier who served in African war zones, said he had seen many dead bodies before but was still shaken by the wounds he saw on Monday.

“The burns were horrific,” he said. “A lot of the people could not talk. It was pretty quiet. The only real words were things like, ‘help’. They were covered in ash and dust. We were picking them up and skin was coming off in our hands.”

Law and his colleagues loaded five people into each of their helicopters and another two into a third private machine that had followed them out.

After spending 40 to 50 minutes on the island, they flew the survivors back to Whakatāne hospital and the airfield, from where they were transferred to specialist burns units across New Zealand. They included men and women of a broad range of ages.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescuers land on White Island after the eruption. Photograph: Michael Schade/AP

Law said he would fly back immediately to recover the eight victims who remain on the island while police waited for clearance from experts to return. “It’s a bureaucracy,” he said. “I would get the bodies now if I was allowed.”

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New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, praised the crews of the rescue helicopters. “Those pilots made an incredibly brave decision under extraordinarily dangerous circumstances in an attempt to get people out,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Among Whakatāne locals there is a growing sense of frustration, bordering on anger, at the delay. It echoes feelings in Greymouth, in New Zealand’s South Island, the scene of the Pike River mining disaster in 2010, where 29 victims remain entombed.

Storey voiced frustration at being barred from recovering the Whakaari bodies, having discovered a friend, tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, dead when he was there.

“I came across a guy there I recognised. He was beyond help,” he told New Zealand’s TV3. “I just pulled him out from where he was and made him as comfortable as I could so he is there when we go back to get him.

“We would have loved to have gone back but we were instructed not to go back out. It was pretty hard to take.”