Skydiving display off?

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 2

Skydiving display off?

PA Greymouth A planned exhibition, by the Canterbury Skydiving Club at Runanga tomorrow is likely to be cancelled because a pilot declines to fly for the club so soon after the death of his former friend and fellow pilot, Mr John Slocombe. Mr Slocombe, of Hokitika, was killed last Sunday when the Fletcher topdressing aircraft he was flying crashed.

Two of the four skydivers aboard were members of the Canterbury Skydiving Club which planned an exhibition tomorrow as part of the Runanga School’s gala day.

The pilot, Mr Bill Hende, of Greymouth, has declined to fly for the club and this will probably mean that plans for the exhibition will have to be shelved. “I went to John Slocombe’s funeral at Gore on Wednesday,” Mr Hende said yesterday. “I don’t feel like flying for the club so soon afterwards.” He said to do so would be in bad taste. He and Mr Slocombe had been friends for gbout three years.

“I do not think anyone else is very keen to do it either,” he said. The club’s safety officer, Mr Morrie Campbell, said that Mr Hende’s withdrawal would probably mean that the exhibition would not take place. “It makes no difference to us. We were to do it for nothing. We were putting ourselves out,” he said. Mr Campbell said he could understand Mr Hende’s decision.