Cannabis spotter plane crash lands

A police drug-spotting plane crashed in Northland while on a cannabis operation.

The plane was being used to search for cannabis plants in the Northland hills when it crashed into a fencepost after being forced to land in a paddock in squally weather last Friday.

The Northern Advocate understands the plane overshot the paddock on a Bay of Islands farm and cartwheeled before coming to rest in a gully. The civilian pilot and a police constable on board were not injured, while the plane sustained moderate damage.

The plane had been searching for cannabis plants in the hills behind Moerewa when a weather squall came through and the pilot made the "prudent" decision to land in a nearby paddock, said Inspector Win Van der Velde of Police National Headquarters.

"He brought the plane down successfully but hit soft ground and a fence post at the end of the paddock," Mr Van der Velde said.

The plane has been recovered for repair after it was believed to have been taken from the farm on the back of a truck on Saturday.

The farmer whose land the plane crashed on was unwilling to discuss the incident when contacted yesterday.

The Civil Aviation Authority and police have launched separate investigations into the accident. Mr Van der Velde said the crash would not impact on the current national cannabis operation as other resources were available to police in Northland and nationwide.

Police declined to name the pilot or police officer involved in the crash for security reasons.

CAA communications manager Bill Sommer said investigators from the organisation would talk to the pilot in a bid to find out the cause of the crash. The CAA would then decide whether to travel to Northland to investigate further.

"More often than not we don't put someone on site unless there's a fatal accident," he said.

"We are concerned about any crash. We will get a full report from the pilot."

Whangarei police declined to release details of how many cannabis plants they had found during the cannabis swoop for fear of jeopardising the remainder of the operation.

Northland has long been regarded as the cannabis capital of New Zealand and regularly tops the country's annual cannabis hauls.

Northland police seized a record 48,625 plants in the region in the 12 months to the middle of last year - the highest number in 20 years. Each plant has an estimated street value of $1000.

With the cannabis outdoor harvesting season approaching the spotter planes are used to locate the plants before ground crews go in and pull them out and destroy them. Police also spray cannabis from the air with a dye containing pesticide that kills the plants.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)