Children saw plane loom out of fog before crash

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 5

Children saw plane loom out of fog before crash

PA Napier “Her it comes, here it comes,” yelled two children inside a car shortly before an aircraft flown by Desmond Lynch, aged 20, of Te Kui’ti, crashed into a hillside killing all four occupants. A Hastings housewife, Vera Lorraine Edwards, was giving evidence in the Napier Coroner’s Court into an air crash on September 1. Two men and two women were found dead inside the four-seater Piper Tripacer that crashed into a gully on the northen said of the Titiokura Saddle, 53km north-west of Napier. The Napier Coroner (Mr D. E. Weston-Wacher) adjourned the inquest sine die until evidence from a witness at present in Australia and a report from the Inspector of Air Accidents had been heard. The three other victims of the crash were Joanne Stokes, aged 19. of Te Aroha; Carolyn Faye Reed, aged 18. a journalist from Hamilton: and Timothy Jon Hayes.

The four were going to Napier for a Rotary youth leadership awards reunion that week-end. Mrs Edwards said that about 4.30 p.m. on September 1, she was driving up the Titiokura Hill. The fog was getting thicker as she climbed the hill when she suddenlyheard the children yell, “Here it comes, here it comes.” Her two children had seen the plane as it loomed out of the fog. She said she heard the aircraft but saw nothing. A Glenfalls fanner, Mr C. J. Haldane, said he was feeding his dogs when he saw a light aircraft flying in light, misty fog. It flew past at a distance of about 91m and, he estimated, about 15m in the air. He thought at the time that the pilot should not have been flying in those conditions. He knew pilots who on similar occasions had turned around and waited it. out on top-dressing strips further down. “The plane went straight on

into thick fog,” he said. A general farmhand from Te Pohue, Alec Charles Wilson, said the aircraft was seen by his search party about 6.15 a.m. the next morning. The search party could see no signs of life and they did not attempt to search through' the ■ wreckage until the main rescue unit arrived. A Napier constable attached to the C. 1.8., Gerald Russell McLachlan, said the pilot of the aircraft had been flying for three years. He said Mr Lynch had clocked up 30 flying hours in the Piper. Constable McLachlan said the area of rhe crash was notorious for bad weather and had been the scene of similar crashes over recent years. No radio 'messages were received from the plan during its flight from Hamilton, and. Constable McLachlan said, tlie emergency beacon was never activated. All four passengers were dead when the main search party arrived at 9.10 a.m.. he said.