Plane crash found after four years

Press, 7 November 1978, Page 6

Plane crash found after four years

PA Invercargill A light aircraft piloted by a Gore man. which disappeared on a flight from Ardmore to Gore four years ago, was found by three pig hunters in the Matemateaonga Ranges, near W’anganui, yesterday. The three hunters found the badly damaged plane on a steep hillside, with the skeleton of Mr Ray Courtenay still strapped inside.

“There were bits of plane scattered all around the fuselage,” said Mr G. Ballinger, one of the men who found the plane, last evening.

“The fuselage was pretty badlv twisted, but it was still in one piece,” he said. Mr Courtenay had been accompanied by another light aircraft on the flight from Ardmore, and he was last seen about 10 a.m. on July 27, 1974, about 60km north of Wanganui. The wreck was found about 40km east of Eltham, about halfway between Wanganui and New Plymouth.

The three hunters cut a piece of the fuselage from

the wreck and gave it to the New Plymouth Police. A police spokesman said that the numbers from the fragment of fuselage provided “fairly conclusive evidence” it came from the missing Maule M 5 aircraft. Mr Ballinger said that the plane appeared to have flown straight into the hillside, travelling south. After its disappearance, "sightings” of the plane were reported as far away as Nelson, Levin, Marton, and Hawera.

Mr Courtenay was aged 32. and married.

The New Plymouth police will investigate the reported finding of the plane today.