’Copter Joins Search

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30819, 3 August 1965, Page 1

’Copter Joins Search

(N.Z. Press Association)

WANGANUI, Aug. 2. A helicopter will fly six men into the Aorangi Ranges behind Taihape tomorrow morning to continue the search for a Taihape farmer, Graham Bruce Collier, aged 30, who has been missing in below-freezing temperatures in bush country since Thursday evening.

An aerial search by the helicopter, owned by Alexander Helicopters, Ltd., of Wanganui, and piloted by Mr M. J. Alexander, and a Wanganui Aero Work, Ltd., aircraft, piloted by Mr J. Harding, today failed to find any sign of the missing man. Ground search parties were unable to get into the area because of the sodden conditions.

The aerial search was made possible when the cloud level lifted and a thaw set in, the search director, DetectiveSergeant B. N. Middleton, of Taihape, said tonight The helicopter will fly five members of the Search and Rescue Organisation and a Forest Service employee into the area tomorrow morning. Mr Collier has not been seen since he left the 30,000acre Mangaohane Station homestead at 1 p.m. last Thursday to go shooting. He was due back that night. He was warmly clad in woollen clothing and carried rifle and ammunition.

An opossum trapper, Mr M. i Templeton, searched for Mr ] Collier in a utility vehicle. He continued his one-man 1 search in freezing conditions ]

on Friday and when he found no trace of Mr Collier reported the matter to the police on Saturday morning.