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
Update 8 October 2013
We set the date for the next search for the 5th October 2013 but unfortunately everyone
on the previous search (bar Terry and I ) had to cancel at the last moment due to
work commitments. So on the 5th, Terry and I were back at the woolshed preparing
to bridge a large washout that had expanded in size since the first trip in. On the
first trip, we were able to use an old gate and some planking to get the Suzuki 4x4
and the quad-bike (and trailer) across. This time, the landowner had pre-warned us
that we would need planks at least 3 meters long as it had washed out further, and
so I took two steel box section planks up with me from Hastings on the roof rack
of my van. One was 3 meters and the other 3.6 meters. As you can see from the following
photos, the 3.6 meter plank was just long enough!
My ‘heart sure was in my mouth’ as I drove across it, and I was pretty much a nervous
wreck when I got to the other side... especially when we eventually got back over
later in the day!
Anyway, we safely made it up to the site, this time armed with 2 x metal detectors,
plenty of laminated photo images, and a strong desire to find the right spot after
spending hours studying the exact layout of the tree patterns and other identifiable
data. As every Google Earth satellite photo shown using the “Historical Image” function
was slightly in a different area, I had a total of another three possible spots to
check out numbered WAC 2 to WAC 4. “ZK-WAC” was the original position that we originally
used.
I also had noticed the position of the object with the 1988 photo overlaid on Google
Earth and then by going into 3D and positioning the view looking directly into the
valley, that it was just below and to the right of where two streams converged. By
then finding this position on Google Earth without the photo overlay, I was able
to come up with a fourth position that I named WAC 3D.
