Confident of spotting body if one was there

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

The rescue chopper crews involved in the search for a possible body seen in the water off the Gisborne coast on Friday night are confident if there was someone in the water they would have seen them.

The Trust Tairāwhiti Rescue Helicopter and a chopper from Hawke's Bay were called out after a passenger on a passing cruise ship reported seeing what appeared to be a body in the water. The ship was about 25 nautical miles off Gisborne at the time of the “sighting”.

Maritime New Zealand initiated the search just before 6pm on Friday.

“We searched the area where the sighting was reported for about two hours,” Trust Tairāwhiti Rescue helicopter pilot Harry Stevenson said.

They were joined after about half an hour by a Hawke's Bay rescue helicopter crew, who had been in Gisborne delivering a patient to hospital.

Each helicopter had a fuel capacity of two hours to spend in the search area, by which time low fuel supplies and failing visibility forced them to call off the search.

“Flying conditions were good, though there were reasonably strong winds,” Mr Stevenson said.

“Sea conditions were a bit rough, with a few white caps, but search conditions were reasonably good.

“We're pretty confident that if there was someone in the water we would have been able to see them.”

Mr Stevenson said the passenger who made the report had described clothing items on the body thought to have been seen in the water.

“The detail the passenger was able to provide increased the credibility of the sighting but there was a lot debris in the water, probably from the cyclone (Gabrielle).”

Maritime NZ on Friday night said unless further information was received the search was unlikely to be resumed on Saturday, and it was not.