Plane delay not unusual, says airport manager

An airport manager told by a topdressing pilot he would arrive at Whangarei in 15 minutes did nothing when he failed to arrive because he said it was not unusual.

Whangarei Airport manager Mike Chubb said he was called by pilot Peter Beatty about 11.30am on Tuesday. Mr Beatty told him he would be landing at the airport in 15 minutes.

The plane crashed soon after, killing Mr Beatty and his loader Greg Nash but their aircraft was only reported overdue by a relative of one of the missing men 12 hours later.

Mr Chubb refused to discuss the incident today and referred calls to Super Air Limited, the owner of the aircraft.

However, on National Radio he said Mr Beatty had rung about 11.30am to talk about a few minor matters.

Mr Chubb said: "He gave a sign off from the phone call, saying he was going to see me in a quarter of an hour. But we didn't think anything of it when he didn't show up because with the nature of top dressing pilots and planes, we didn't think it was anything unusual."

He said when he heard an aircraft later he asked if it was Mr Beatty and when told it wasn't, he carried on with his work.

He said it was not until 10.30pm that night when one of the men's families came to see him that he realised what had happened.

He said he knew the two men well and was very upset at the tragedy.

Super Air spokesman Peter Mourits also refused to discuss the delay and Mr Chubb's role in it.

He said the company had relied on the aircraft's emergency locator beacon which failed to work.

He said after the crash of Auckland millionaire Michael Erceg's helicopter on November 4, the company was investigating issuing personal emergency beacons to all its flying staff as a way of improving safety.

The emergency beacon on Mr Erceg's $1.7 million Eurocopter also failed and it was more than two weeks before their bodies were found on Mt Karioi near Raglan.

Mr Mourits said the company would be investigating their "buddy" system, which also failed to work. Under the system, pilots tell a nominated person of their flying intentions for the day and contact their "buddy" at the end of the day.

"We have a concern over the time delay, we have a concern over that the emergency locator beacon did not go off. There were some people who were aware the aircraft was due, so there are some things to be looked into."

He said the company wanted the industry to look at the reliability of emergency locator beacons so they did not fail when they were needed.

- NZPA