$97,000 sought for election-night wild flight

As New Zealanders sat watching the national elections on September 17, Auckland man David Gregory Turnock just wanted his wife back.

Sitting at Ardmore Airport drinking bourbon and Coke, the 33-year-old pilot and flight instructor worked out how to get her attention.

For an hour and 20 minutes after stealing a Piper Cherokee Warrior, threatening to fly into the Sky Tower and telling air-traffic controllers to get his wife on the phone, he had everyone's attention.

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Turnock pleaded guilty to seven charges, including threatening to harm people and property, unlawfully taking an aircraft and operating an aircraft in a way to cause unnecessary danger, along with a number of Civil Aviation charges.

The most serious charges carry a penalty of up to seven years in prison.

Now the airport wants $80,680 in reparation for the aircraft he eventually crashed into the sea off Kohimarama Beach, and Sky City wants $16,600 after it had to evacuate 500 people.

Turnock and his wife had recently returned to New Zealand from Fiji, where they worked as flight instructors.

After taking the plane, he circled so low over his wife's Manurewa home that she thought he was going to crash into it.

Witnesses could read the writing underneath the wing of the plane, police said.

Turnock then thought his wife might have been at a party in St Heliers, so he flew there, circling the house where he thought she was.

Then he went back to the Sky Tower and circled it before heading back towards Ardmore Airport.

"When he arrived he saw vehicle lights, which he thought were police, so he changed his mind," police said.

Turnock headed back to St Heliers intending to crash into the sea and kill himself, but he crashed about 100m off Kohimarama Beach near his father's home.

Six days earlier, he had been released into his family's care after being admitted to a West Auckland mental health unit when he tried to harm himself.

He told police he had taken the aircraft to get his former wife's attention and never intended to harm anyone but himself.

Turnock, who has one previous conviction for driving with excess breath-alcohol, was remanded in custody by Judge Anne Kiernan.

He will be sentenced on January 27.