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
When I first saw this object on the aerial photo, I thought it looked familiar, and
after quite some time, I realised why. A couple of years ago (maybe more) our Aero
Club lost a Tomahawk into the bush when a student on a Flight Test unfortunately
flew into a very narrow dead end valley. The Instructor took over control and managed
to perform a controlled crash into the bush. They both survived although spent quite
a while in Hospital with serious injuries. The media flew in in helicopters and took
photos of the crash scene and this is what I was ‘seeing’ all over again.
Now if you compare this photo to the object in the NZAM aerial photo, you’ll note
the similarities!
You’ll note how the tail of the aircraft has concertinaed and
twisted into the rear
section of fuselage.
This normally twists to the left as shown due to the torque of the propeller impacting
with the ground.
I know I did challenge you people in Auckland to have a look for yourselves, but
after finding this object on this photo, the temptation was too much for me to ignore...
I had to check it out!
Between James Taylor and myself, we managed to track down the owner of the land that
we needed to get permission from to gain access to this area, so on the 7th Sept
2013 we all met up at the land owner’s property (along with the land-owner) and set
off to search the area.
Search party, left to right:
Corrie, Nathan, Terry (my brother), James, Howard, Jonathan, Lennart, myself, Vick,
and of course not seen - Gary Soden who took the photo. You’ll note we try to include
some ‘young’ adults as this is an adventure that they will remember for life, and
hopefully give them some bush skills. I learnt a lot of mine from my Dad when I was
young, of which I’m eternally grateful!
