Hunch led searchers to air crash site

Press, 24 October 1984, Page 8

Hunch led searchers to air crash site

PA Wanganui The crew of an executive aircraft spotted the wreckage of a Wellington Aero Club plane missing since October 17 while making an impromptu search en route from Rotorua to Wanganui. The Wanganui Aero Work’s principal, Mr Richmond Harding, and his operations manager, Mr Chris Wolff, pin-pointed the crash site in a burnt out patch near a bush-covered gully, at 2.20 p.m. after flying over it several times at tree-top level. Mr Harding said last evening that his extensive experience of flying in the mid-North Island spurred

him to scour that area. Although the spot was probably overflown by searchers on the same day the plane was lost, it was probable that low cloud covered the area, he said. Mr Harding said he had intended to look in the Kaimanawas on Monday but bad weather prevented this. He and his brother, Mr Bill Harding, of Waiouru, had talked about the disappearance and decided the ranges probably hid the wreckage. That assumption was based on the reckoning that - Mr Taylor would have followed the pilot’s maxim of flying windside of a hill, in this case Mt Ruapehu, to

escape the worst of the weather, he said, It appeared he did just that, Mr Harding said, and left the Desert Road to follow the Puotu canal into the Kaimanawas. It seemed as if the missing plane might have been caught in the gully and hit the ground at speed, exploding on impact Little of the aircraft remained, Mr Harding said. The wreckage was identified by a Wanganui Aero Work helicopter pilot, Mr Simon Green, of Taihape, who manoeuvred his machine close enough to to spot the Grumman insignia on the tail, one of the few pieces relatively intact. ..