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
At 4.51 pm, Paul Clarke was given clearance for take-off at Ardmore for an hours practice flight in the training area to the south-east of Ardmore.
There has never been any trace since.... Except maybe from what I have shown in this article?
Missing: Paul William Clarke - age 20
9 August 2013
In July 2012, I was able to get copies of the original Search files for ZK-WAC with
permission of the TAIC. Until now I have not had time to examine them.
When I initially perused them, I noted the huge amount of reports of sightings and
thought that finally the Authorities at the time had a system in place that recorded
the details accurately enough to enable future accurate investigation, but alas,
this was not to be... The forms, although set out in such a way that made it easy
to ensure much of the needed information was gathered, were obviously too difficult
to understand, so most of them only supplied partial information. This was also not
helped by the names of many of the observation places had been spelt incorrectly
which made it very difficult to locate them. However, I shouldn’t complain as at
least I had something to go by. There were over 50 Reports, so I spent a lot of time
deciphering the information, locating the supposed locations of the observation areas,
and where possible, created placemarks on Google Earth along with arrows to show
the direction of travel.
This above photo was Paul’s Mum’s favourite and was copied from the one she kept
with her ever since he disappeared. If anyone has a clearer one, please send it to
me so that I can post it here.
Send to: grgrimmer@waspnet.co.nz