Cause Of Topdressing Fatalities Not Found

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30368, 18 February 1964, Page 11

Cause Of Topdressing Fatalities Not Found

(New Zealand Preu Association)

WELLINGTON. Feb. 17. In neither of two topdressing fatalities which occurred last year has the accident investigation branch of the Air Department been able to determine positively the cause of accident. Kenneth Walter Parish, aged 47, married, an experienced pilot, was killed when a Fletcher aircraft crashed on a steep slope near Taneatua on October 21. The aircraft was in good order and struck the ground under power. Detailed examination of the wrecked plane disclosed no pre-impact defect. The weather was not a factor. The final turn, said the report of the chief inspector of aircraft accidents, Mr O.

J. O'Brien, was made, contrary to all accepted precepts. in a direction which took the aircraft into inhospitable country. The circumstances under which this turn was made suggested a sudden physical incapacitation of the pilot which caused him to lose control. Donald Arthur Wallis, a single man of 21. was killed when a Cessna 180 crashed near Taibape on December 7. He had had limited experience, but his natural ability and attitude towards agricultural flying had made an excellent impression, said Mr O’Brien. A supervising pilot saw the aircraft assume a steep angle of bank and the nose dropped sharply as the plane passed behind a hill. A farmer witness heard a rifle shot “crack” and on looking up saw the aircraft in a nosedown attitude until it struck the pond at the bottom of a slope at full power. No positi-e evidence of structural failure was found, even though the sound heard by the farmer witness above the sound of his tractor suggested it did occur. The possibility remained that the tail trim “ran away” while the aircraft was in a steep turn and that the immediate effect was to cause the aircraft to stall. How this could occur was discussed in technical detail by Mr O’Brien. There was no evidence that the pilot was directly responsible for the occurrence of the accident.