She died along with eight other Australians when the Sea King chopper crashed nose-first into a football ground and burst into flames.

Flt-Lt Rowbottom had just spent three months helping victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Banda Aceh and was about to return home when given the order to return to Indonesia.

Yesterday, Flt-Lt Rowbottom's siblings in Launceston said she was a proud and devoted nurse who joined the Air Force in 1996 and loved her career.

Flt-Lt Rowbottom, who served in East Timor in 2003, was married to Terry Rowbottom, also of Launceston, and had a 21-year- old son Rhys.

She was the fifth of five children born to Les and Pat Eadie, of Mowbray. She was educated at Invermay Primary School and later at Broadland House Girls Grammar School.

She began her nursing training at the Launceston General Hospital and the Queen Victoria Hospital.

She nursed in intensive care and later in the renal unit under Professor Rob Fassett.

In 1991, she moved to the Townsville General Hospital, where she specialised in renal therapy, especially in far north Queensland.

In 1996, she joined the Royal Australian Air Force and was posted to Point Cook, Victoria, before transferring to Townsville in 2001.

Flt-Lt Rowbottom was part of the Australian peacekeeping force that served in East Timor in 2003.

Investigations into the cause of the accident were continuing.

The bodies of the nine Australians were expected to arrive at the Richmond base near Sydney early today.