KEY POINTS:
A pilot who survived a serious flying accident three years ago was killed when a top-dressing plane crashed into trees in the Bay of Plenty yesterday afternoon.
Opotiki police found the body of Andrew Wilde and his missing plane only half-an-hour after he failed to return shortly after noon.
The father-of-three was only hundreds of metres from the farm landing strip he had taken off from.
The broken fuselage of the plane was scattered at the bottom of a grove of trees in the neighbouring valley.
Witnesses saw smoke coming from over the ridge where the plane was last seen heading.
Police said they did not know what had caused the crash, but the Civil Aviation Authority and Transport Accident Investigation Commission had been informed and had begun inquiries. Wilde took off from the airstrip on a Warrington Rd farm, 4km south of Opotiki, and was found by searchers in a valley at the end of Matchitt Rd.
Neighbour Graeme Redpath said the man who loaded the plane quickly realised what had happened when Wilde didn't return, and alerted police and local helicopter operators.
"It is a big shock to the area. We don't like to see service people go like this. Everyone is very shocked."
Redpath said Wilde was from Whakatane and top-dressed about a dozen farms in the area.
Other neighbours said they knew the plane was flying but did not see or hear a crash.
"We hear planes flying overhead all the time, we didn't think anything of it," one Warrington Rd resident said.
Wilde was an experienced pilot with more than 12 years' flight experience and had lived in Whakatane since 2003.
Wilde survived an accident three years ago when a top-dressing plane he was flying with another pilot suddenly lost power and nosedived into a stream.
