"Foreign9 Planes Endanger Alpine Flying

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30398, 24 March 1964, Page 1

"Foreign 9 Planes Endanger Alpine Flying

(From Our Own Reporter)

TIMARU, March 23. Concern that some aero club aircraft, specially from Canterbury, flew over the Mount Cook area without having notified their intentions was expressed this evening by Mr D. G. Middleton, a Mount Cook Air Services pilot. Although the five aircraft engaged in the region did not have exclusive right to its air space, it was in the interests of safety that clubs should instruct their pilots to give their flight plan, he said. There was a lot of traffic In the Mount Cook and

Westland national parks and it was not a big area. Aircraft from Mount Cook landed on snow fields at low levels and flew at heights from ground level to the top of Mount Cook and sometimes higher. Many club pilots hired aircraft and “shot” in to the area flying around the gutlies. Mr Middleton said that on one occasion one of the company’s aircraft was on the snowfield. He was going in to land when an “intruder” went down to “buzz” the aircraft on the snow.

On other occasions, unexpected visiting aircraft had got alarmingly close and he had just seen their shadows on the snow. “We know where each of five aircraft is through our own radio circuit, but when you have such heavy flying activity in a small area anyone coming in is running a risk and also endangering our own operations,” he said. Some private owners were also at fault. Aircraft should indicate where they had taken off from and where they were bound for. whether they intended to land at Mount Cook or over-fly it, and how long they were going to remain in the area, said Mr Middleton. “We have no legal protection whatsoever,” he added.