Hunters survive second crash

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 1

Hunters survive second crash

PA Invercargill A Manapouri helicopter pilot and a shooter were last evening wondering at their mixed blessings after surviving their second crash in a month.

Mr Jim Kane, aged 34. and Mr Michael Mitchell, aged 25. were found safe and well yesterday at the head of the south-west arm of George Sound, after a cold night in the Fiordland bush. While rescuers wondered at their luck to be found alive and well, the two men were not so sure. Having experienced their second crash in a month — both because of engine failure — Mr Kane said that they could not decide whether they were lucky or not. The pair left Te Anau on a wapiti recovery trip on Monday evening but did not return as scheduled. A search began at first light yesterday morning and by early afternoon hopes of finding the .two men alive were dwindling. Three., privately owned’ helicopters and an R.N.Z.A.F. m Friendship scoured ; ! ■ the'-' rugged Glaisnock wilderness area where the- missing. Hughes 500 D helicopter had • last been sighted during the. morning, but saw no sign of the two men. / V

However, just before 2 p.m. they were sighted waving fiiriously from a beach at the head of the arm, and w’ere picked up. by a helicopter.

Mr Kane later described them night out as long, cold, and tiring 1 .

The helicopter's engine had cut but soon after 8 p.m.. and he had been forced to put it down in the icy water of the sound. There was -no time to rescue the helicopter’s emergency beacon, and the two men had to swim 100 metres to shore.

There they found two drums, which they used as rafts to make their way up the sound, in the direction of the hut they had seen before landing. After a gruelling 10 hours of paddling, they beached their drums and plunged into the bush to spend the night. "It was pretty cold out there, but not as cold ass-it might have been,” Mr Kane said. "It would have been much worse higher up." The men began tramping through the . bush very early yesterday niorning' and ar-;-rived at', the hut about 10 a.m? < There ;.they ,met><a tramping' party which had, camped the night, and were given a welcome cup 0f.,tea.,l

"From there on there . was no problem,” .Mr Kane; said;

“The only, thing we/fwer'e worried about was that'we couldn't tell anyone we were, safe and soiftid."

The pair’s first accident, which happened at Nejson, was on December 18, exactly a month before the Fiordland crash. ...