Gavin Grimmer
hand motor (don’t know at time of writing) then a right hand turn against the thrust of the good engine onto finals, if he hit a downdraught would have made this absolutely impossible and hence a crash into that hill. The only way he could have made a right hand turn was to pull the power on the good engine and effectively turn the plane into a glider, but if he didn’t have the height to clear the range in this configuration, this also would have been impossible.
Summing Up:
On careful analysis of Robin’s 8 mm movie, Chadwick had no hesitation to fly above cloud if it presented a better way to get to his destination. Over the 130 + odd trips down to Milford, he would have been ‘fine tuning’ the flight to give the best views and flight experiences for his passengers. From Fox > south into the Paringa area is into rising ground that often would have been impassable due to low cloud. I think his intention on this day was to fly over the top of cloud that was obstructing the flight down through the Paringa area in the hope of coming out in the clear again near Haast. The track from Jacobs River to Mt Aspiring comes within 6 miles of his usual turning point “10 miles east of Haast”, but I think in this instance there was complete cloud cover... so he continued on above cloud to Mt Aspiring where he had previously worked out a method of how to descend ‘safely’ (in his mind at least) through the cloud there.
From that point on was simply just a continuation of his route to Milford, ... all
be it via the “East Coast Milford Arrival” route. Guaranteeing that they made it
into Milford meant he got to keep all his fares and had happy customers who would
spread the word.
If this was a recent aircraft that had gone missing, given what I
have portrayed here i.e. wreckage seen, smoke signaling, Mayday call heard – both
indicating survivors, an approach to the only clearing in the bush allowing a possible
place to land in an emergency for miles, and the difficulties of pulling this off
with only one motor, I would think it would be a prime place that SAR would search,
don’t you?
As a result of this, I now believe this new area needs to be checked out with “boots on the ground”... The top of the saddle - all the way down the other side where the ‘wreckage’ was seen. The only part helicopters should be used is dropping searchers in and out and in that capacity, they are invaluable.
My suspicion is that right at the last period of the flight, there would have been a strong turbulent downdraft on this side of the ridge shown below, and a strong up draft over the ridge given the report of a 25-30 knot SW wind reported by the Miss Geraldine and I think this could well have contributed to the demise of the Dragonfly. I think Chadwick fell short of this hill intending to get across this saddle and hence the position of the wreckage seen all those years later on the other side as it had been washed down from the top of the saddle, so the top of the saddle would be the place I would start to search and work my way down the other side where the “wreckage” was seen.
It could have clipped the ridge and gone down the other side, although then there was a hill in the way probably making it more difficult for VHF ducting to get through to Auckland?
** What would be the chances of seeing smoke in such an isolated area as that, especially
in 1962 when there were a lot less tourists/trampers around?.. And that smoke was
later in the afternoon of all afternoons - the day a tourist flight disappeared?
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