Plane Crash Kills Pilot, Starts Fire

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30365, 14 February 1964, Page 10

Plane Crash Kills Pilot, Starts Fire

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, February 13. A light plane crashed near Naseby this afternoon, killing the pilot and starting a fire in tinder-dry grass and scrub behind the Naseby State Forest.

The pilot was Kelvin Lennard Phillip Wakelin, aged 21, a North Otago Aero Club instructor, of Oamaru. Wakelin, formerly' of Christchurch, and who had been with the dub for a month, took off from Oamaru early this morning in a Vieta to carry out instructional work in Cromwell.

The plane crashed unnoticed on the southern slopes of the Hawkdun ranges, near Mount Ida, between 3 and 4 p.m. The fire was noticed soon afterwards by an employee

of the Maniototo County Council. The fire quickly caught In the dry growth, and although there was only the slightest easterly wind, was soon on a front raging between one and two miles. There had been no rain in the area for several weeks. Fire-fighters found the wreck of the Vieta but were unable to recover the body. A sergeant and two constables left Dunedin at 9.30 p.m. for the scene, to help the recovery operations. At that stage it was not known whether there were two men in the plane.

The Vieta is an Australianbuilt two-seat monoplane.