N.Z. markings on seized Viscount a mystery

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34106, 19 March 1976, Page 2

N.Z. markings on seized Viscount a mystery

/New Zealand Pre»» Association!

WELLINGTON, March 17. Civil aviation and N.A.C. officials are mystified by a report that a Viscount aircraft carrying New Zealand registration markings was seized in Lusaka by Zambian officials last Sunday.

The Director of Civil Aviation (Mr 1. F. Walters) said the plane could have been carrying New Zealand markings. but it would have been doing so improperly. "All aircraft sold overseas

from New Zealand are no longer registered in this country,” Mr Walters said.

The public relations manager for N'.A.C. (Mr A. Feslier) said he had no wav of knowing if the seized aircraft had at any stage been used by the corporation in New Zealand. “To ascertain this, we would have to know the exact markings on the aircraft.” Four Viscount aircraft used by N.A.C. had been sold overseas in the last two years and a half. Mr Feslier said. These were ZK-BMD. which was sold to Gibraltar

Airways in January, 1974; ZK-BRE (November. 1974) and ZK-NAI (July. 1975), which were bought by Montgomery Air on behalf of a subsidiary company. Pearl Air, which works in the Bahamas; and ZK-BWO, which was sold to Aircraft Sales Australia in December, 1975. The Viscount and its crew of five were seized by Zambian officials for using air space from which the Zambian Government had banned National Union (Unital aircraft after the victory of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola last month. Associated Press reported that the Zambian Minister of

Home Affairs (Mr Aaron Milner) said the five men, all white, were being held for questioning. He declined to reveal tneir nationalities. The plane was refused landing rights on Sunday when it touched down at Lusaka Airport. After its seizing, it was guarded by armed soldiers on the airport tarmac.