12 hours before plane reported lost

A topdressing plane carrying two men lay wrecked in bush just minutes from Whangarei Airport for 12 hours before the alarm was raised.

The Civil Aviation Authority will investigate why the airport did not alert anyone that the plane failed to arrive from Kaikohe on Tuesday morning.

Super Air pilot Peter Beatty, 49, and colleague Greg Nash, 56, both from Pukekohe, were killed when the Fletcher turbo-prop smashed into dense bush in the Pukenui Forest, about 9km from the airport.

The pair had contacted Northland Aviation at 11.36am on Tuesday to say they were 15 minutes from landing.

Nothing further was heard until the airport contacted police at 11.30pm to report the plane missing.

Northland Aviation spokesman Mike Chubb was reluctant to speak to the media yesterday. The company, which runs the airport, is owned by the Whangarei District Council and the Ministry of Transport.

Asked by the Herald why the airport did not raise the alarm right away, Mr Chubb said it had few employees and no control tower.

"This is a very small airport. It's not Auckland International."

A private air search was carried out around midnight and the official search began at 8.30am yesterday.

The wreckage was spotted at 11.15am and a police officer was winched from a helicopter, while a ground team walked an hour through thick bush to the crash site.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission also sent an investigator to the scene.

Family members travelled to Whangarei and waited at the airport for news.

The bodies of Mr Beatty and Mr Nash remained in the plane last night and the scene was under police guard.

Police hope they can remove the bodies today after air accident investigators complete their work.

The men were just three to five minutes' flying time from the airport when the plane crashed into a hillside.

Sergeant Cliff Metcalfe, head of Northland Search and Rescue, said the plane appeared to have struck nose-first and was wrapped round a tree.

The aircraft was "extensively damaged" but largely intact, he said.

A Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokesman said Mr Beatty had not filed a flight plan, which is not mandatory, and there was no beacon signal.

The centre did not have a radar track as the plane had been flying under 4000 feet.

The spokesman said a private pilot with keen eyes had spotted the wreckage yesterday.

Mr Metcalfe said he was able to plot a flight path based on a witness who saw the plane on the trip back to Whangarei. The witness said the plane appeared to be fine.

Mr Beatty and Mr Nash had been topdressing southeast of Kaikohe and were heading back to Whangarei for scheduled maintenance.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said it was not the responsibility of Northland Aviation to track the movements of private operators using the airport. Their job was to run the aerodrome only.

Passenger airlines such as Air New Zealand and Eagle Air were forced to operate their own flight-following systems and some contracted that service out to the Airways Corporation.

An employee at the airport said there were up to 35 plane movements a day.

Once pilots came in to a "mandatory broadcast zone" they had to communicate with one another. There was no facility at the airport that acted as a central control point for pilots.

"They sort it out among themselves."

Most regional airports in the country operated similarly, he said.

The topdressing plane would have been just outside the mandatory broadcast zone, the employee said.

A spokesman for Super Air, Peter Mourits, said it was inappropriate to question why the alarm was not raised earlier.

"Our focus is very much on supporting the families. A full investigation will take place later."

Super Air is a wholly owned subsidiary of fertiliser co-operative Ballance Agri-Nutrients and has 17 aircraft operating throughout the top half of the North Island.

Mr Mourits said family members and employees were devastated at what had occurred.

"It's very tough. We're a tight-knit group. Senior staff are supporting the families who are in Whangarei."

Mr Nash's widow, Alexis, was included in the gathering.

Mr Mourits said he understood the couple had a number of teenage or adult children.

Mr Beatty had separated from his wife. It was believed they had three adult children.

Super Air's website said Mr Beatty began agricultural flying in 1978 and had flown in Sudan and Malaysia.