Family positive Erceg still alive

Michael Erceg (left) and Guus Klatte

The family of liquor magnate Michael Erceg remain confident he is alive despite searchers failing for a third day to find his helicopter.

Sixteen helicopters scoured isolated coastline and dense bush along the west coast between Raglan and Wanganui yesterday in a bid to locate the Eurocopter.

Today they will look near Mokau, where three new sightings at 11am on Friday have been confirmed.

Ivan Erceg, brother of the missing Aucklander, said it was a difficult time for the family, who were focusing on helping with the search.

"We are a very strong family. The first priority is to find my brother and his passenger and to do whatever it takes to achieve that result."

He remained confident the men were still alive.

"I am absolutely positive of finding them alive. There is nothing to suggest they are not."

Rescue co-ordinator John Dickson said the new sightings would allow searchers to refine the area being scoured by about a third.

"There is still a lot of ground to cover ... so [having] a large number of helicopters enables us to carry out the search as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, which is critical in case the two men are injured."

Michael Erceg, a pilot for around two years, was flying Guus Klatte, export director of Dutch brewer Grolsch, to Queenstown.

The helicopter left Ardmore Airport in South Auckland shortly before 10am on Friday and disappeared from radar contact 30 minutes later.

While all aircraft carry locator beacons that automatically go off when an aircraft goes down, the Eurocopter's has not been activated.

Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokeswoman Heidi Brook said it was not often that beacons failed but there were a number of reasons the device could stop working.

"When they get wet, whether it's a helicopter or aircraft, the battery gets drowned and it doesn't activate."

Intense fire could destroy a beacon or there could be a failure of the gear itself.

"Helicopters do crash in New Zealand and most of the time the beacon does go off."

Mr Erceg was flying in low cloud and drizzle.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said there were guidelines about visibility and conditions but essentially it was up to the pilot whether he or she wanted to fly.

The guidelines state a helicopter can fly in a situation where there is less than 5km visibility if it is manoeuvred at a speed where other traffic and any obstructions can be seen.

"They [the guidelines] don't say you can't go up," Mr Sommer said.

"The weather can catch you out, especially if it's rain and low visibility. In a helicopter you definitely have an advantage over a fixed-wing aircraft."

Mr Sommer said helicopter pilots could slow down in bad weather and look for somewhere to land.

"You can put it [a helicopter] down on a valley floor."

Eurocopter International manager Jimmy Nel, whose company sold Mr Erceg the copter this year, said the weather at Ardmore on Friday was patchy.

"It was coming and going. We had light rain and it was cloudy."

But his company had aircraft up for maintenance flights and conditions were acceptable for flying.

Tenon rescue helicopter pilot Nick Ragg said the size of the area to search and the denseness of bush meant it could take days to locate Mr Erceg's machine.

"If it went down in bush, it could be concealed by tree cover."

He said aerial searchers needed to look for clues, including tree damage, and for glimmers of maroon, the colour of the helicopter, below the tree canopy.

Mr Erceg is the founder and managing director of Independent Liquor and has featured prominently in the NBR rich list.

Independent Liquor makes and markets alcoholic drinks. Its major business is in its own RTD (ready to drink) brands but it also produces brands of beer, liqueurs and spirits.

It is understood the trip was to show the country's beauty to Mr Klatte.