AIRCRAFT CRASH

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30043, 30 January 1963, Page 12

AIRCRAFT CRASH

Pilot Killed In Gully

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN, January 29. One of the most experienced light aircraft pilots in New Zealand was killed when his Piper aircraft hit a fir tree and crashed into a gully about 250 yards below in West Tuapeka today. He w F as:

Charles Adrian Frederick Bevin, better known as Peter Bevin, aged 31, of Clyde, married, with two children.

Mr Bevin took off from a strip on the “Heathcote” f'.rm owned by W. and G. Young, West Tuapeka, at 6.15 a.m. for his first run to spray gorse.

The aircraft cut about 6ft off the top of the fir tree and a wheel and trail of perspex fragments led down the gully to a severed wing and the crumpled remains of the fuselage and other wing. The control panel clock was stopped at 6.20 a.m. Mr J. N. B. Murray, who was on the loading and fuelling truck attached to the aerial operation did not hear any crash, but organised a search when the Piper aircraft was overdue. Civil Aviation Administration experts, headed by Wing Commander P. P. O’Brien, inspector of accidents, flew from Wellington this morning and inspected the wreckage in the afternoon.