This Site is dedicated to all those families of the people that have tragically disappeared on flights in and around New Zealand. I only hope that from all the effort in building this site and from all the effort of those taking part in this venture, that it will bear fruit in bringing ‘closure’ to their memories!
Gavin Grimmer
Gavin Grimmer
position about twenty miles east of Bruce Bay. Imagine the odds, that out of the whole of the incredibly large area that the Dragonfly could be, that the object that I found was “about 20 miles east of Bruce Bay”!
I contacted Richard Waugh who is presently in Kentucky, USA, on a course until around June 2008 and I’m sure he also got real excited about it, and since then we have been in regular contact via email.
I spent many an hour on the telephone trying to locate the two eyewitnesses of “the aeroplane with the wing off” – a Mr. Reg Gee of Renwick, and Jim Thompson, a Met.Observer at Hokitika Airport in1967. I eventually found that Reg Gee had sadly passed on, and although I rang what must have been half of the Thompson’s in NZ (and there are hundreds of them listed in Telecom White Pages) I was unable to locate him. I found people that worked with him at the time (he was known as “JJ”) but they had also lost track of his whereabouts.
Richard told me that recently he had found out that the Mt. Cook Skiplane pilot that had conducted the search in 1967 was Lyall Hood and he now resided somewhere in NSW in Australia and “had something to do with insurance”. I did a Google Search and managed to find him.
He gave me the description of where he was told that the “aircraft” was seen and it matched where I had found this object, so I emailed him the image off Google Earth minus the GPS coordinates and he emailed me back and the following is his email dated 20-11-07:
Gavin that looks like what was explained to me that they saw. All that we were able to find was what looked like a snow/ice covering on
moraine that looked a bit like part of an aircraft.
Looks hopeful.
Keep me in the loop.
Good luck
Lyall
On the 21st November I sent the following email to Richard:
Sorry Richard but I forgot that I was going to mention that I think I have an answer to why "A" Grade Cotton could last for 45 years out in the weather as you would think that it would have fallen to pieces by now.
This object is in a Valley that would spend most of its time in the shade and probably only has direct sunlight for 2-3 hours a day, so if that being the case, then that would equate to approx. 11 years 3 months and seeing that it would be under snow for probably 6 months of the year – roughly 5 years 7 months and
remembering that it is up in cold air and in the mountain ranges with lots of cloud cover then the actual UV that it would have to absorb could be a lot less than this, so I have no difficulty believing that the fabric on an aeroplane could last this long in these conditions.
Hope this answers another "puzzle"!
Regards
Gavin
The day after (the 22nd Nov.) I flew down to Mike and Sharyn Fleming’s again (Loburn, Christchurch) and after a restless night there, I picked my friend Sean Husheer, a fellow pilot and one that is familiar with the Welcome Flat area, up from Wigram Airport, and we flew from there down past Mount Cook, over the Copeland Pass, and down through a big hole in the cloud directly over the area that I was interested in.
It was very difficult trying to recognize the correct spot as we were circling down from 11,500 ft. to about 7,000 ft and I was just pointing the camera in the general area and pushing the button in the hope that I got something. It was fascinating seeing the Valley in real life after spending so much time in it on Google Earth
Object area under snow
I contacted Richard Waugh who is presently in Kentucky, USA, on a course until around June 2008 and I’m sure he also got real excited about it, and since then we have been in regular contact via email.
I spent many an hour on the telephone trying to locate the two eyewitnesses of “the aeroplane with the wing off” – a Mr. Reg Gee of Renwick, and Jim Thompson, a Met.Observer at Hokitika Airport in1967. I eventually found that Reg Gee had sadly passed on, and although I rang what must have been half of the Thompson’s in NZ (and there are hundreds of them listed in Telecom White Pages) I was unable to locate him. I found people that worked with him at the time (he was known as “JJ”) but they had also lost track of his whereabouts.
Richard told me that recently he had found out that the Mt. Cook Skiplane pilot that had conducted the search in 1967 was Lyall Hood and he now resided somewhere in NSW in Australia and “had something to do with insurance”. I did a Google Search and managed to find him.
He gave me the description of where he was told that the “aircraft” was seen and it matched where I had found this object, so I emailed him the image off Google Earth minus the GPS coordinates and he emailed me back and the following is his email dated 20-11-07:
Gavin that looks like what was explained to me that they saw. All that we were able to find was what looked like a snow/ice covering on
moraine that looked a bit like part of an aircraft.
Looks hopeful.
Keep me in the loop.
Good luck
Lyall
On the 21st November I sent the following email to Richard:
Sorry Richard but I forgot that I was going to mention that I think I have an answer to why "A" Grade Cotton could last for 45 years out in the weather as you would think that it would have fallen to pieces by now.
This object is in a Valley that would spend most of its time in the shade and probably only has direct sunlight for 2-3 hours a day, so if that being the case, then that would equate to approx. 11 years 3 months and seeing that it would be under snow for probably 6 months of the year – roughly 5 years 7 months and
remembering that it is up in cold air and in the mountain ranges with lots of cloud cover then the actual UV that it would have to absorb could be a lot less than this, so I have no difficulty believing that the fabric on an aeroplane could last this long in these conditions.
Hope this answers another "puzzle"!
Regards
Gavin
The day after (the 22nd Nov.) I flew down to Mike and Sharyn Fleming’s again (Loburn, Christchurch) and after a restless night there, I picked my friend Sean Husheer, a fellow pilot and one that is familiar with the Welcome Flat area, up from Wigram Airport, and we flew from there down past Mount Cook, over the Copeland Pass, and down through a big hole in the cloud directly over the area that I was interested in.
It was very difficult trying to recognize the correct spot as we were circling down from 11,500 ft. to about 7,000 ft and I was just pointing the camera in the general area and pushing the button in the hope that I got something. It was fascinating seeing the Valley in real life after spending so much time in it on Google Earth
Object area under snow
