Air Force to search for plane missing 43 years

Press, 8 December 1987, Page 4

Air Force to search for plane missing 43 years

By

DAVE WILSON

A large Air Force expedition will travel to the West Coast next month to conduct a grid pattern search for a pilot and World War II Corsair fighter, missing for 43 years. The search- will be carried out by R.N.Z.A.F. physical education instructors as part of their field training in bushcraft and survival techniques. Although the Air Force has made several investigations of areas where the Corsair is thought to have crashed in November 1944, this expedition will be the most intensive. More than 30 R.N.Z.A.F. personnel will be involved, and an Iroquois

helicopter will be used to ferry the search parties to the remote and rugged bushland where the search will be conducted. Major Bruce Morrison, the Armed Forces public relations officer for the South Island, says the search area is “real tiger country” with no direct road access. He says the Air Force has received interesting reports of possible sightings of the wreckage in rugged country north of Murchison. “Over the years there have been occasional searches but never anything as organised or sophisticated as this plan.” 1 Major Morrison says

the expedition will satisfy a dual purpose, being valuable field training for the physical education course members, while giving the Air Force an opportunity to make a final search for one of its missing airmen. “The pilot was listed as missing presumed killed in November, 1944, and I understand that if this search is unsuccessful, the file on this missing aircraft will effectively be closed,” he said. The searchers will establish their base camp on January 15 and begin the grid pattern search several days later. The operation is scheduled to run for about 10 days. NZ5517 was in a section

of four gull-winged Corsairs crossing - from the West Coast to Christchurch on November 11, 1944, when it disappeared in cloud. ■ No trace of it or its pilot. Pilot Officer B; K. Barstow, has ever been found although in recent years several hunters and helicopter pilots have reported sighting the wreckage of a blue aircraft in the area where it vanished. The Corsair is one of eight New Zealand-based R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft still posted on the "missing” list. Seven of the aircraft vanished during World War II and the eighth, ar' Mustang, disappeared in 1955.