Warning for port crane parachutist

Press, 31 March 1983, Page 9

Warning for port crane parachutist

PA Tauranga “I suppose someone had to do it sometime,” Judge D. B. Wilson said this week when told how a man, aged 28, parachuted from the top of the multi-purpose crane at the Port of Tauranga. Grahame Hide, a stonelayer, of Mount Maunganui, admitted in the District Court at Tauranga that on January 2 he made a parachute descent other than in an emergency, without the approval of the Director of Civil Aviation. He was discharged under section 42 of the Criminal Justice Act on payment of $lOO towards the cost of the prosecution. Sergeant R. E. Lynch said that Hide’s co-offender had been treated in a similar way in the District Court at Hamilton.

The Judge warned Hide that if he reoffended it would be recommended to the Director of Civil Aviation that Hide’s licence as a

parachutist be revoked, Sergeant .Lynch said that at 6 a.m. on January 2 Hide - and his associate went by launch to the crane, climbed it, made a parachute jump of 70 metres and were then picked up by the launch. Hide, an experienced parachutist, said he decided to make the jump because it had not been done before. Base jumps are not approved in New Zealand by the Director of Civil Aviation.