Air crash student victim named

Investigators do an initial check of the wreckage of the Cessna in which Jessica Neeson and her student died yesterday afternoon. Photo / NZPA

The student pilot who died after a mid-air collision with another plane in Feilding yesterday has been named.

She was Patricia Smallman, aged 64, from Waikanae.

Flight Training Manawatu's chief flight instructor Jess Neeson, 27, was also killed.

Their bodies were removed from a Manawatu paddock after a mid-air collision with another plane yesterday.

The foreign student at the controls of the second plane managed to land safely at nearby Taonui Airfield but Ms Neeson and her student, whom police said was aged in her 60s and from the Kapiti Coast, crashed into a paddock on Durie Rd.

The flight school has suspended operations as Transport Accident Investigation Commission officials launch an investigation into the crash.

Minutes after the bodies were taken from the site in a hearse today. Air accident investigator Ian McClelland told media it was too early to know what caused the crash.

"It's too early to talk about the actual circumstances surrounding the crash. Our job at this stage is to gather as much evidence as possible," Mr McClelland said.

The focus this morning was on extracting the victims' bodies, and police and the Fire Service were faced with "a few challenges" in doing so on a cold, rainy day.

Investigators would now carry out a site survey, including looking at ground marks at the site, and interview at least five witnesses.

After the plane was removed from the site, investigators would look at the control positions, the engine and propellers, and the overall condition of the aircraft.

There was no requirement for planes of that size to have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders.

Investigators were yet to speak to the surviving pilot but would do so "sooner rather than later", Mr McClelland said.

The investigators had also spoken with the Airways New Zealand communications centre in Christchurch to obtain radar recordings from the area yesterday.

Flight Training Manawatu chief executive Michael Bryant said last night he was struggling to "get his head around" what had happened.

He said Ms Neeson had flown with the company for about five years.

Ms Smallman was about halfway through completing her private pilot's licence, and the sole survivor of the collision had almost completed his commercial pilot's licence.

The crash comes just two weeks after another plane crash in the Manawatu which left an instructor and student seriously injured.

Gary Skedgwell, 30, was on a commercial pilot's licence training flight from Hastings Airport with trainee Sam Metzger, 18, when the two-seater Air Hawke's Bay Piper Tomahawk crashed in the Ruahine Ranges, north of Palmerston North.

Mr Metzger was treated for chest and leg injuries and Mr Skedgwell suffered serious head, chest and leg injuries.

- NZPA