Finished Job After Hitting Power Lines

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30530, 27 August 1964, Page 10

Finished Job After Hitting Power Lines

(New Zealand Press Association)

. WIIANGAREI, Aug. 26. A Northland topdress* Ing pilot flew his Fletcher aircraft through three 11,000-volt power lines stretched across a farm gully near Whangarei yesterday and an hour later was spreading fertiliser on an adjoining farm. The pilot, Mr Sam Sands, aged 25, of Whangarei, was not injured, and the aircraft received only three small burn marks on the starboard wing, nose and propeller from the arcing of the breaking power lines. Mr Sands said he was spreading the last load on a farm at Waikaraka when he hit the three power lines stretched across a deep gully

between two hilltops about 25 chains apart. He had not seen either the lines or the 35ft pylons which stood only a few feet clear of the thick bush, although he had. known they were somewhere on the farm. - He felt the bang when the wires parted. The impact pulled one pylon out of alignment. Mr Sands and another pilot working on the property,. Mr J. Corbett, said the incident emphasised the need to help agricultural pilots to locate power lines from the air.. They urged some form of marking system, clearing of bush around power pylons to make them more visible, and adequate warning by farmers of such hazards on their properties.