Plane Rescues 4 From Beach

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32178, 23 December 1969, Page 1

Plane Rescues 4 From Beach

(New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, December 22. Four men stranded on Ruggedy Beach, on the north-west ♦ coast of Stewart Island, after an air crash were rescued by a commercial pilot, Mr Murray Pope, of Gore, at 7.30 tonight.

The crash occurred when a Cessna 180 aircraft attempted to take off from the beach after landing on a private pleasure flight this morning.

As the aircraft taxied along the beach a cross wave swept in and the plane nosed into soft sand.

None of the four occupants of the plane, piloted by an In. vercarglU commercial pilot, Mr Murray Donald, aged 23, was hurt. The $12,000 aircraft, which was a year old, is a write-off. When the plane did not arrive back from its flight the owner chartered a Southland Aero Club plane and at 10 a.m. found the crashed aircraft On the beach with four people standing round it. Mr Pope was called in, and, flying a Cessna 185 of the Southern Districts' Aero Club from Gore, he picked up the

plane’s owner and flew down to Ruggedy Beach this evening. _ The rescue plane was in Westport on a charter flight when it was needed. More delay was caused when the rescuers had to wait for suitable tide conditions before landing , on the' beach. With one eye on the incom- ■ Ing tide, Mr Pope landed on i the relatively small beach. The four people who had been stranded there all day were f taken aboard and the Cessna, ' packed down with, passengers, , roared along the beach and managed to get airborne.