Gavin Grimmer
Update 24 April 2012
As a result of my research and ending conclusion on the previous pages on this topic, I ordered more aerial photos - to add to those that I already had of the Okarito Forest, which now gives me virtually the complete forest as it was just 18 months after the Turner’s disappeared.!
I went over all the new aerial photos in great detail but came up with nothing, and so I revisited the original ones that I already had, and concentrated on the area around the Three Mile Lagoon, as per my final conclusion of where they might be.
To the northwest of the Lagoon, I found an object that I had originally come across on my first examination of this photo, an object that looked very much like an aeroplane. I had discounted as it was so obvious that it would (?) have been seen on the original search and there appeared a dark section in the middle of the ‘wings’ that in my mind ruled it out as it should have been the same colour all the way from wing tip to wing tip.
I overlaid the photo on Google Earth and measured the distance from wing tip to wing tip - 36 feet. The fuselage - around 21 feet.
The correct measurement of a Cessna 172 is wing tip to wing tip - 36’1” and the fuselage - 26’11”.
Last week, on going over the article in Chris Rudge’s excellent book “MISSING”on about the umpteenth dozen time, I noticed something I had never noticed before:
Chris was discussing the possibility of the aircraft being visible if it had come down in snow. Quote: “Although the aircraft was painted olive green on the upper fuselage and the top of the engine cowling, the remainder of the fuselage and wings were white.”
Chris was obviously talking from a point of view of what would be visible from an aircraft flying over above, as we know by the photographs of CSS that she also was mainly olive green down the sides of the fuselage and the entire rudder.
NOTE: “ painted olive green on the upper fuselage ”.......This suddenly made this object very feasible!
A cropped down section of the aerial photo taken from 28000 Ft!
I learnt that only the northern facing side of the hill above Okarito was ground searched at the time, and the rest was searched by helicopter. The person involved said that he has always regretted not getting the helicopter pilot to fly lower and slower at the time as he said it was done at a fairly high altitude and way too fast. Easy to say that now, but there was nothing to suggest (at the time) that the Turner’s had definitely crashed there - apart from the woman who said she heard a plane motor...and shortly after heard a crash noise...in the direction of Three Mile Beach.
This object is in that direction!
Page 12 of 15
