Jessica Cousins Tribute Onlinetributes.com.au

SCENIC flights in the Bungle Bungle ranges have been suspended while the northern West Australian town of Kununurra struggles to come to grips with the death of three residents in a helicopter crash.

Police have identified the three young women and their Queensland pilot who were killed when a helicopter crashed in Purnululu National Park on Sunday.

A police spokesman, Greg Lambert, said the helicopter was being piloted by Christian Cartigue, 40, of Rockhampton. Also killed were Kununurra residents Jessica May Cousins, 19, and Sarah Louise Thomas and Whitney Pinney, both 20.

A fire that stretched for a kilometre after the helicopter exploded has now been contained by the Department of Environment and Conservation.

The Bellburn airstrip where the helicopter took off from has been closed and all scenic flights have been suspended.

Sergeant Lambert said rugged terrain in the remote Kimberley location was hampering recovery operations. An ironman legend, Grant Kenny, who owns the helicopter company, Slingair Heliwork, was last night travelling to the crash scene. The crash is the fourth explosion of a Kenny-owned helicopter in the past decade.

Inspector Paul Zegir of WA police said the helicopter crashed about 1pm on Sunday near the Kimberley-region town of Warmun.

The chief executive of the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley, Peter Stubbs, said the deaths of the three women had hit his community hard. "It is a great shock to the community," Mr Stubbs told Fairfax radio.

"The young people were well known in the local community."

Slingair Heliwork is WA's largest privately owned aviation firm. A Queensland company, Curry Kenny Aviation Group, owned by Mr Kenny, bought Slingair Heliwork this year.

A spokesman for Curry Kenny Aviation, Andrew Crook, said the pilot was experienced and had flown over the Bungle Bungles for several years.

"We are obviously deeply saddened and shocked about what's happened," he said. "We are working with all the regulatory authorities to find out what did happen and whatever we can do to assist in that, we will."

Mr Crook would not comment specifically on the company's safety record, referring questions to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

The bureau's director of aviation safety investigation, Julian Walsh, would not comment on the possible cause of the crash.

He said the company's safety record would be examined.

The alarm was raised by another helicopter pilot when they saw smoke on the horizon and could not contact the crashed helicopter by radio.

The Department of Environment and Conservation fought the bushfire and shut down the Bellburn airstrip overnight.

The airstrip abuts a bush camp in the World Heritage-listed Purnululu, about 55 kilometres by air from the township of Warmun. Police confirmed the bushfire was not a threat to campers or campsites in the area.