KEY POINTS:
The sound of aircraft is omnipresent in the skies above Paraparaumu, mildly irritating for some perhaps, but not threatening.
Yet for Garry and Janet Harris, who moved into their rented home in the Kapiti town three weeks ago, Sunday's mid-air collision not only disturbed their peace - it almost claimed their lives.
Janet Harris was sitting on the bed at 11.15am when her husband yelled "Get out of the house, now!"
Moments later the wrecked Cessna smashed into their house, driving its 130kg engine and propeller through the roof and into the hallway, less than a metre from the couple's bed.
The propeller blade cut cleanly through gib board and wooden wall joists, bashing a hole in the concrete floor and spraying oil throughout the hallway.
The fuselage rolled off the roof into the garden, demolishing brick gate posts and coming to rest in the street. Looking out the window, Garry Harris saw the 17-year-old pilot still strapped upside down in his seat, his legs hanging out.
A neighbour came running with a carving knife to cut the pilot, Bevan Hookway, from his harness. The pilot was taken to hospital but died later from his injuries.
Harris said he had come home after 18 years overseas, hoping to start a new life in New Zealand with his British wife.
Ill fortune has dogged the couple in recent weeks. First they were detained by police in China and nearly deported over a visa problem. Then, they had to throw away belongings damaged by mould in a leaky shipping container. Next morning the plane engine fell through their roof.
"It was surreal," said Harris. "I lived in London for 18 years, through all those terrorist attacks. I still can't believe that nobody else got hurt."
* 'PLANE CLIPPED CHOPPER BEFORE CRASH'
It came, quite literally, out of the blue. On a brilliant, late summer morning last Sunday Jae Russell was out walking with his son in Paraparaumu.
They were just getting to the top of a small rise with their eyes raised towards the sky, Russell half way through uttering a sentence, when in a split-second mayhem unfolded 300 metres above.
"The left wing of the plane clipped the tail of the helicopter," recalled Russell. "It sheared off a chunk of its wing ... it seemed to stay airborne for a moment, then it went into a spin, straight down. The helicopter went pretty much straight into a spiral and went down.
"As it headed down it screamed ... the sound wound up in pitch and volume until it landed."
Many people in Paraparaumu heard that noise, but Russell appears to be one of the few who actually witnessed the collision between the two aircraft which claimed the lives of two teenage pilots and an instructor.
Nearby, Kerry Jones was having a cup of tea with his wife Viv when he heard two aircraft engines revving wildly. A huge bang followed and they looked up to see the crippled aircraft descending in pieces.
"When I think about it, just before the collision the engines revved up," said Kerry Jones. "I think they saw each other at the last minute."
He said the airplane "floated off" before plummeting into a residential area, but the helicopter "torpedoed" down, straight through the roof of a Placemakers store.
Russell said the helicopter was travelling south, above the industrial area beside Kapiti Rd, a couple of hundred metres outside the airport.
The Cessna was flying west, towards the airport and the coast.
A source close to the airport said he understood both pilots had issued the correct mandatory radio broadcasts to announce their positions. "No one was playing the cowboy."
