Skyhawk pilot did not make last radio call

Press, 27 March 1981, Page 3

Skyhawk pilot did not make last radio call

PA Palmerston North There was apparently no final radio message from Flight Lieutenant John Dick before his Royal New Zealand Air Force Skyhawk crashed into a steep cliff face east of Taihape on Wednesday.Another Skyhawk pilot

had gone looking for the aircraft when Flight Lieutenant Dick had failed to appear, said the Ohakea Air Base public relations officer, Squadron Leader A. Anderson, yesterday. The two Skyhawks were on a routine exercise in the Colenso area of the Ruahine Range when Flight Lieute-

nant Dick was killed. The area is an official low-flying area. Flight Lieutenant Dick was a member of No. 75 Squadron’s aerobatic team at last month's Air Force Day at Ohakea. Squadron Leader Anderson yesterday discounted that the two were on aerobatic manoeuvres. The team had come together solely for Air Force Day and aerobatics had been discontinued. The ejector seat which Flight Lieutenant Dick used as his Skyhawk went down was a standard zero-zero system. Squadron Leader Anderson said. It is designed to hurl a

pilot to safety at zero altitude and zero speed. The same type of system saved the lives of two Australian pilots when a Royal Australian Air Force Fill crashed at Ohakea.

The ejector seat would not have been as effective if Flight Lieutenant Dick’s aircraft was nose down at speed at very low altitudes, Squadron Leader Anderson said.

A full legal inquiry had been set up. It would try to establish the circumstances of the crash of the Skyhawk.

Preliminary checks of the base’s Skyhawks started yesterday. Squadron Leader Anderson said No. 75 Squadron’s aircraft had not been grounded, but were subject to precautionary tests to establish whether there were any obvious faults which would aid the inquiry. Military aircraft did not carry “black box” flight recorders. He expected that the Skyhawks would be back in the air in a few days.

Flight Lieutenant Dick, aged 26, had flown Skyhawks for three years. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree from the University of Canterbury before joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force as an officer cadet. He graduated from the pilot training school at Ohakea and flew Strikemasters with No. 14 Squadron. Flight Lieutenant Dick joined No. 75 Squadron and began flying Skyhawks in 1978.