Fearing the worst, the soldier typed out a frantic message to her army mate.
"F**k f**k f**k please msg me when you guys have phones," she wrote.
They'd exchanged messages only hours before, while he was sitting on the tarmac in a military helicopter.
"There is a weird vibe now you've gone," he'd written earlier.
"I hope you have fun tonight," the soldier, who has been given the pseudonym D20, replied after confirming she'd left to visit home.
Little did D20 know, it would be the last time she'd speak to Captain Danniel Lyon, her friend and an army pilot in the 6th Aviation Regiment.
He and three others all perished in deep waters off the central Queensland coast when their MRH-90 Taipan helicopter ditched into the ocean.
An inquiry into the circ*mstances of July 2023 has this week revealed the final gut-wrenching messages between colleagues in the hours leading up to the crash.
But nearly a year on, the families and friends of the dead are no closer to understanding why Bushman 83 went down that night.
'Toxic' army culture of fatigue and burnout
The plan was meticulous.
Soldiers had descended upon Proserpine in the Whitsundays in July last year to take part in Exercise Talisman Sabre, training with American forces.
As night fell, four crews were to fly MRH-90 Taipan helicopters in formation to pick up special operations personnel from Lindeman Island.
But in the hours before the mission, D20 decided she wanted out.
"I did not sleep well because I was dwelling on how much of my life I had given to the regiment," she told the inquiry.
The unit had been switching between back-to-back night and day shifts, often working 12-hour-long stints and on the weekend.
Soldiers were even offered sleeping tablets to help them get through their shifts, the inquiry heard.
The anonymous soldier was concerned the fatigue and burnout situation was becoming unsafe, so she raised her concerns.
It was ultimately futile.
"It was becoming quite toxic … it wasn't a good environment," D20 told the inquiry.
It wasn't the only thing on her mind.
As Troop Commander, D20's role was to help soldiers with administrative issues — including payroll — an increasingly frustrating task.
It was taking months, even years, before soldiers were being paid for work they had already completed.
"You couldn't pay me enough to deal with the rubbish we were dealing with," she said.
The intense workload, combined with fatigue and a "toxic" culture from army top brass was reaching boiling point.
"Headquarters were not supportive, they weren't interested in factoring in the human element," D20 told the inquiry.
By the time the exercise was underway in Proserpine, she was cracking under the pressure.
"Why am I doing this," she recalled asking herself.
"Why am I literally burning myself into the ground for an organisation that does not care about me?
"I can't keep doing this."
In a moment of distress, she told her superior she wanted to go home. He agreed and booked her on the next flight out to Sydney.
She felt guilty about leaving her comrades behind for such an important mission, which had taken years of organisation.
"I felt like I was quitting and leaving them," she told the inquiry.
Her colleague, Captain Danniel Lyon — affectionately known as Diesel — caught wind of what was going on and sent her a message of support.
"Don't worry, I'll look after things," he wrote, as he boarded Bushman 83 one final time.
Heavy rain that night
The inquiry previously heard rain was so heavy on the night of the crash, it was reaching the threshold for cancellation.
Despite this, the original flight path was altered and crews pressed on with the mission.
The four helicopters made the first turn in formation but, at the second turn, Bushman 83 suddenly climbed into the air before nosediving and plummeting into the water.
Crews from another aircraft initially thought a flare had gone off, but it was the Taipan hitting the water at high speed.
The force of the impact was so intense, the bodies of the soldiers were never fully recovered.
The morning after the crash, D20 awoke in Sydney to a flood of messages and missed calls.
A series of near misses
In evidence detailed before the inquiry, army pilots described a series of near misses and close calls in the now-retired MRH-90 Taipan fleet leading up to the 2023 crash.
The aircraft were unnecessarily complex and clunky to fly, one pilot said.
Another pilot said the helmet-mounted sight display goggles used by soldiers — known as TopOwl — created significant visibility issues in the co*ckpit, including altering the perception of ground speed and location.
"I started to lose visuals due to the ground [perception] and handed controls over to the flight instructor," the pilot said, describing a close call while using the system.
"The significance of that dawned on me."
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Another pilot, Major Michael Gallatly, told the inquiry he had a "daunting" near miss in a Taipan — three years before the July crash — when the aircraft also suddenly nosedived mid-flight on the NSW coast.
He was able to quickly recover altitude by switching auto pilot off, but the experience left him rattled.
"The system couldn't perform at the level it was required to," he said.
"At no stage did I feel confident that I could keep everyone safe in the aircraft."
Families still waiting
Nearly a year on, families of the fallen soldiers say they have still not received death certificates for their loved ones, despite police insisting otherwise.
So little of the soldiers' remains were recovered from the crash, it took officers months to verify their identities.
Only thirty bone fragments were located.
No DNA was recovered of Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent.
Without a body, Caitland Lyon — Captain Lyon's wife — previously told the inquiry she hasn't been able to secure a military grave for her husband.
Day after day, week after week, the families of the victims have sat front-row of the inquiry in Brisbane.
They have listened through every torrid detail of the final moments of their husbands, sons and brothers, only occasionally pausing to take notes or hold each other's hands in support.
Sometimes they have stepped outside when it's all become too much.
Mostly, they have sat in stoic silence.
They are still no closer to finding out what happened to their loved ones, and they're desperate for answers.
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