Gavin Grimmer
The crash area is shown within the red outlined area, but the most highly probable area will be where the snow is. The area where this snow is, is known as Mt Hart.
The weather was bad for several days after they disappeared, so I suspect that any debris was buried in snow.
Incidentally, this satellite image was taken on 23 March 2004 and they disappeared on the 3 January 2004, and although 23 March is still summer in New Zealand, note that there is still snow there.
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This is another satellite image taken 26 February 2004 and you will note there is a lot more snow over the area, so I can only deduce from this that as there was several days of bad weather making it very difficult for the searching aircraft, that the wreckage was buried under the snow making it impossible to see.
June last year (2010) I was contacted by Darryl Sherwin, the Westpac Rescue Helicopter pilot who made a name for himself by being the one responsible for calculating the area where Eurocopter EC 120B helicopter ZK-HTF had
crashed, and when that area was searched more thoroughly (near Raglan), the helicopter was found .
He had since spent a lot of time, along with Tom McCready (a very experienced CAA Accident Investigator who was originally placed in charge of the HNW investigation) researching the disappearance of both ZK-FMQ and ZK-HNW, and along with another CAA Accident Investigator we all agreed to work together on these cases by sharing information.
It’s due to this sharing of information, ideas, and theories that Tom, Darryl and I (not sure of the other investigator) now all agree that this is where the wreckage will be found.
This is a good example of what can be done when people stop being secretive.
I found many times that for some reason, some people ‘sit’ on information as they like it to be just their little secret!
As I’ve said before, there is so much that can be done when collectively we work as a team with a common goal - to find these long overdue aircraft and give the unfortunate families finality.
If all goes well, we may have some exciting news in the near future....time will tell.
If anyone has been tramping in the area and happens to have high resolution photos of the north-eastern face of Mt Hart, or have tramped around the base of that face, please contact me.
Watch this space........
