Matthew Wood's Sutton family mark year anniversary of Vauxhall helicopter crash

Mr Wood, 39, from Sutton, was walking to his Rentokil office when a helicopter hit a crane and came crashing down onto the street on January 16, 2013.

The scene in Wandsworth Road last year. Pic by Nic Walker 

As his family gathered to mourn his death last year burglars broke into his family home just days after his death.

Today his family are heading to the place where Mr Wood died, in Wandsworth Road, to hold a minute’s silence and lay flowers.

His sister, Amanda Wood, 32, who works in ASDA, said: “We are doing OK. We take each day as it comes. We all seem to be OK.

“It has gone so quick. We are going to do a minute or a two minute’s silence when we are in Vauxhall. My family will probably do something together. I have been up there a couple of times and we have taken his nephew to see his work colleagues.

“Every day we think and talk about him. We still have my brothers two cats, Skunk and Evie, they get on with my dog.

“It's hard whenever I go up to Vauxhall and see where it happened and see roughly where my brother got hit and where he would enter work – he was so close to his work entrance.

“This year we will remember Matthew on January 16, then my dad on January 21, and then celebrate my nephew’s birthday on February 1.”

Miss Wood outside her family home

Mr Wood was well-known in Sutton and a regular at The Ship in Croydon. He was described as a ‘big guy with a big heart’.

A date has not been set for Mr Wood’s inquest and his sister added: “We still haven’t heard anything about the inquest. We were told it could take a year to 18 months – so hopefully it will be in the next six months.”

The 50-year-old pilot Pete Barnes died from multiple injuries after the helicopter he was flying hit a high-rise crane.